


At World's End

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: Mama AU [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gen, MAMA Era Powers (EXO)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28371873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: After crash landing on a post apocalyptic Earth, the twelve Guardians of the Tree of Life struggle to find their way back together, all while dealing with the trauma and betrayal they experienced back home. (Originally posted on AFF between 2012 and 2014)
Series: Mama AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077869
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	1. Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Hello it's me, if you remember this story then you know me as that-dam-aries or cherithangel. I haven't been active on AFF in years, but this story, this universe, is still the thing I am most proud of. Since this is where I am now most active, I want to post the story here. I'll be putting up the original 7 chapters in this story, and the offshots/continuation will be posted together in another part (which will be rated M). I will be posting the sequel, Out of the Darkness, here as well. I'm also going to go through the chapters and correct mistakes so there may be some small differences.
> 
> Original story: https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/177664/at-world-s-end

_An alarm, screeching down the halls, sending the coats into a flurry._

_“Abandon the project, save yourselves!”_

_“There’s nothing we can do.”_

_“You there—kill it.”_

_“Find your brothers.”_

_“What?”_

_“Find them. Don’t ask questions, just find them and get home.”_

That was the last thing Kris heard before the needle slipped under his skin and he fell into unconsciousness, the alarm fading into the distance, blissful warmth encasing him.

The next time he woke up, all he heard was silence. That was odd, usually there would be the hum of the machines that monitored his vital signs, if not the buzzing voices of the coats who stood over him.

No, not just coats…people. Not his people. _Doctors_ , they were called.

He opened his eyes, stretched his arms. Another peculiarity, there was no pinch in the crook of his elbow. He turned his head to the side.

There was no needle in his arm!

“How strange,” he muttered. There had always been a needle in his arm, regulating when he woke and when he slept.

No, there had been a time when there were no needles, when there were no doctors. When it had just been him.

No, not just him…others…eleven others.

_“We’re going down, get to the escape pods!”_

_“Don’t let go!”_

_“We’ll never make it!”_

_‘Find your brothers and get home.’_

Kris sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The material of his shirt rubbed painfully against his arms. He plucked at it and frowned—what was it? Paper? That was hospital garb, wasn’t it? He looked around, taking in his surroundings for the first time since he’d arrived—no, he’d been kidnapped. Held hostage. This wasn’t any ordinary hospital, this was a lab. He’d been a lab rat, a thing for people to poke and prod.

Except one, who had cared about him.

_‘Find your brothers.’_

Kris walked to the door and it easily slid open for him. He was in some kind of hallway, with a door at each end and many more lining the sides. He went to the right, only to find the door at that end locked. He turned around, intending to try the door on the left, and was greeted by another boy standing a few feet away from him.

“About time,” he said crossly. “I thought you would never wake up.”

“What—Who are—” Kris stuttered, struggling to place the boy, who clearly knew him. Slender, thin face, tall…his eyes…he _knew_ this boy.

_Chasing butterflies around a garden, arms aloft. “Pick me up, Kris!”_

_Years later, twirling a long staff, striking his foes down with one blow, he didn’t even need to look._

“Tao!”

His littlest one, his best friend. Kris ran over and hugged him tightly.

“It’s not just me then.” Tao muttered, clinging to his shoulders. “I didn’t remember you at first either,” he confessed. “I think the people here did something to our minds.”

Kris recoiled in disbelief. “What? How could they? How long have we been here?” He fired off.

Tao shrugged. “Time has no meaning to me, you know that.”

Kris fought the urge to roll his eyes. Of course, _now_ he remembered Tao’s gift and what it meant to him.

“Never mind, then. Let’s just go, we have to find our brothers and get home.”

Tao gave him a puzzled look. “Find our brothers…and get home?”

“Yes,” Kris insisted. “That’s what we need to do. But first,” He looked over the outfit Tao was wearing, different from his own, “Where did you get those clothes?”

Tao jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “In the last room on the left.”

Kris nodded. “I’ll be right back then, this paper is killing my skin.”

He walked off, pulling the shirt over his head as he left.

“Kris!”

Kris froze. “What?”

He turned around to see Tao staring at him in confusion and awe. “Your back…”

Kris tried to look over his shoulder but there was only so far he could twist his neck. “What about it?”

Tao ran over and pulled him down the hall, stood him in front of a door on the right side of the hallway and opened the door directly across, angling it so that Kris could see his back reflected in the glass window. What he saw nearly made his heart stop.

There was a large black dragon marked into his skin, much in the way that his smaller, winged birthmark was marked on his chest, in thin black lines. But this marking was new—or at least, it hadn’t been present prior to his descent to…this place. Kris felt fear threaten to overwhelm him and he forced himself to take deep breaths. He’d never heard of a Guardian receiving more than one mark before, why was he different? Was it good, or bad?

“What does it mean?” Tao asked, rhetorically, since he knew by the look of shock on Kris’ face he had no idea what it was either.

“I suppose I’ll find out when we get home,” Kris managed to say. Then he forced himself to go to the other room and find something else to wear. There was a large box filled with clothing, most of it men’s. He grabbed a white shirt with long sleeves and a grey one with shorter sleeves. He ripped slits into the back of both before layering them on. The pants he found were a bit too big, but he found a belt buried at the bottom of the box. As he made to leave Kris spotted a few bags, and he grabbed a large one and filled it with the excess clothing, since he didn’t know what his brothers would be wearing. Before he left the room, Kris allowed his wings to slide out of his back. Spanning 10 feet in length, his wings were his favorite feature and he took great pride in them, almost to the point of narcissism. The sight of them had always brought him comfort, and now they calmed his fears. After a moment he folded them back up and exited the room.

“Do you know where we are?” Kris asked Tao, determinedly avoid the topic of the marking.

Tao got the hint. “We called it MWTI 81.”

Milky Way Terra Inhabitable 81. Known by inhabitants as Earth.

“At least we landed on the right planet,” Kris muttered as the pair of them made their way toward what they assumed to be the exit.

Tao snorted. “The right planet,” he sneered. “Why were we sent here? We were tortured by those people.”

“Not all of them were so bad,” Kris insisted. They came to the final door, huge, windowless and plated with metal. It didn’t give when they pushed it. Kris eyed his younger brother.

“Can you break it?”

Tao shrugged. “I can try.”

Kris stood back and Tao ripped a pipe off the side of a wall. He eyed the door for a few seconds, Kris blinked and suddenly the door was lying on the floor, Tao standing in the sunlight that spilled in.

“Was it really necessary to freeze that moment?” Kris asked. He was starting to remember Tao’s fondness for his gift, and his ability to sometimes over use it.

“Yes,” Tao insisted stubbornly. “Now then, fearless leader, which way do we go?”

Kris stepped outside and looked around, blinking a bit in the bright light. There seemed to be nothing but desert all around them.

“Give me a second,” Kris muttered. He let his wings slide out from under his skin and he flew up to the roof of the building they had just exited. Those few second in the air were like heaven, Kris purposely stayed aloft longer than he needed to. From his new height, he could see a forest about a mile behind them. Without explanation, he knew that their escape pod had crashed there. He flew back down, knowing that was where they needed to go.

“We’re going back to where we crashed,” He told Tao. “Maybe it will help us remember more.”

They struck off, Tao carrying the bag of clothes so Kris could have full use of his wings.

They had been walking for a few minutes when Tao suddenly spoke. “What did you mean by ‘Not all of them’?”

It took a moment for Kris to place the conversation. “Not all of the doctors were horrible people.”

Tao’s lip curled. “Oh really?”

_The doctor stroked his hair back in a soothing gesture. “What is your name?”_

_He swallowed dryly. He wished he had water. “Kris,” he croaked. Her eyes widened, but he couldn’t read her expression._

_“How do you spell it?” She asked, her voice strained._

_“K-R-I-S.”_

_It was quiet for a minute, but soon he heard a muffled sob._

_“That was my son’s name.”_

“Some of them were parents. They didn’t like what they were being forced to do.”

Tao heard the note of finality in Kris’ tone and dropped the topic.

After an hour they finally neared the edge of the forest and proceeded with caution, not knowing who or what was in the trees. They walked forward for a long time, not daring to speak. Finally Tao turned to Kris.

“Are we lost?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper. Kris started to suggest that they head in another direction when suddenly he felt like he was being jerked backwards. Kris stumbled against a tree, barely managing to hold himself up as the memories of the crash flooded back.

_They had not been warned of the asteroid belt, they had little time to prepare for it. They had been struck, irreparable damage dealt to their ship. They had to evacuate and hope to make it to the planet alive._

_They should have landed together; the escapes pods were meant to be locked on to Suho and Kris’ pod. But they had all been separated, after they had landed Kris had searched for their brothers for hours, but Tao had gotten hurt; his foot had been jammed and it wasn’t getting better, Kris couldn’t leave him alone. And as they weakened from hunger and thirst, they became aware that they were being watched. By then it was too late, the doctors appeared and took them away._

The memory ended and Kris fell to his knees, unable to stand because he was shaking so badly. He’d abandoned his team, his brothers. He should have been there, he and Suho were the leaders, they were supposed to have stayed together in times of crisis. But Kris hadn’t gone in the same pod as Suho; he had to be with Tao at this moment. Tao was his little one, his best friend…they had needed each other.

That shouldn’t have made a difference though, Kris thought desperately. Why would _that_ have thrown the pods into chaos? They were built to track each other, to stay together, what had gone wrong?

Kris became aware of Tao, curled up on the forest floor next to him. He was sobbing.

“Oh, Kris,” He cried, hysteria lacing his tone. “What if they didn’t make it? What if we’re the only ones left? That landing was horrible, the atmosphere was so…we weren’t prepared for this!” Tao looked up at him, and Kris felt tears gather in his own eyes. “Kris, they can’t be dead, can they?”

Kris pulled his little one into his arms and held him tightly, keeping his face angled so that Tao wouldn’t see his own tears. He had been with Tao the longest, and though he may have thought of the others as his brothers, Tao wasn't his brother, nor his son, Tao had always been different, that was why Kris needed to be with him.

“They’re not dead,” Kris said, half to convince himself. “We would feel it if they were.”

Tao only grew more hysterical. “How do you know?!” He all but screamed. “I can’t feel anything, Kris! I’m lost! We’re lost! We’ve been abandoned! This was a trap!”

Kris jerked away, holding Tao at arm’s length. “What are you even saying?” He demanded.

Tao glared at him. “I—” He froze, rising to his feet so fast it was as though gravity had lost its hold on him. Kris felt it too though, and he got up just as quickly. They stood back to back, scanning the forest.

“Who’s there?” Kris yelled. “Show yourself!”

From behind a tree about ten feet away there was a shuffling of feet. A young boy peered out from behind the trunk, and even though he was emaciated and covered in dirt, Kris recognized him.

_He appeared in a flash of black smoke, a cheeky grin slimming his eyes to crescents. “You won’t catch me!”_

Tao went to him first and threw his arms around his skinny frame.

“Kai!” He yelled, hugging him tightly. “You’re alright! You’re alive!”

Kai pushed Tao away from him. His eyes were narrowed to slits, and he looked ready to spit acid.

“Where the bloody hell have you been?” He growled. Kris backed away. Kai’s face was much thinner, his eyes—even narrowed as they were—looked too big for his face. He was covered in a layer of grime and his skin scratched. Kris felt a sense of dread; this hadn’t happened over a period of months, this had taken years.

“We’ve been waiting for ages,” Kai went on, advancing forward. Tao and Kris stepped back. “Why didn’t you look for us? Do you know what it’s been like? Do you have any idea what we’ve been through?!” He screamed the last part.

Both Tao and Kris were initially startled by his hostile reaction, but as Kai screamed Tao leapt to the defensive. “Where have _we_ been? Where have _you_ been?”

“Right here!” Kai hollered back. “Stuck here because we literally couldn’t go any further!”

“Well we were stuck in a lab with needles and tubes coming out of our arms!” Tao screamed. “We were cut open and studied like lab rats!” He lifted up his shirt, showing scars from surgeries. Kris wondered if he had them too, he hadn’t bothered to check after seeing the new mark. “We were tied to hospital beds with doctors standing over us all day and night!”

“Not in the last 332 days when they left with everyone else!” Kai screeched. By this time Kai and Tao were toe to toe, yelling in each other’s faces.

“We had been placed in comas,” Kris broke in, literally, shoving the two apart. He grabbed Kai’s hands and held eye contact, even though Kai still looked ready to kill. “Kai, I’m so sorry it took so long to find you. You know I would have come sooner if I could have, you _know_ that. You’re my brother. I would never leave you alone if I could help it.”

The anger seemed to leave Kai all at once and he slumped forward, Kris barely caught him in time. Kai clung to his shoulders and spoke into his shirt.

“I know,” he said tearfully. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean all that.”

Kris sighed and hugged him tightly, glad that he wasn’t yelling but also glad to have his little brother back. He beckoned Tao over, but he stood his ground, glaring at Kai’s back.

“Who else is with you?” Tao asked, blatantly ignoring Kris’ gesture to get his ass over for a hug.

Kai pushed himself away from Kris. “Lu Han and Sehun,” he said quietly.

Of course, Kris thought as the memories came back to him. The three of them had been inseparable; Sehun and Kai had been best friends, and Lu Han had loved Sehun more than anyone else. It made sense for them all to have squeezed into the same escape pod.

Tao grabbed Kai’s shoulders and shook him. “What did you mean by, ‘We couldn’t go any further?’” he demanded. “What happened?”

Kai stared at the ground and refused to make eye contact. It was a moment before he answered, and when he did he sounded like he was crying.

“It’s Lu Han,” he whispered brokenly.

Icy fear flooded Kris’ veins. “What happened to him?” He gasped.

Kai looked up at him and shook his head hopelessly. “He’s lost.”


	2. The Calling

When he was two years old, Kris learned that he was abnormal. His mother had been reading to him, and he’d taken the book from her and began to read it out loud by himself. Before he’d even finished one page, she ripped the book from his hands and stalked out of the room without saying goodnight.

That was before Kris knew about the Ten Canons of the Guardians. At that time all he knew was that his mother didn’t like to hear him talk about constellations and rising tides, and he had to dress himself every morning because she hated looking at the birthmark on his chest. Sometimes he’d sit in his room and try to remember a time when she had been able to look at him at all. All he had come up with was an itching on his chest, right over the birthmark, and he would wonder if she tried to scrub it off when he was a baby.

Kris’ father, on the other hand, was delighted with his son’s amazing intelligence and did everything in his power to get him a good education. Kris started school when he was three, and by the time he was five he was learning geography and division. It was around that time that he’d first met Matron.

Of course, Matron wasn’t her real name, it was her title. In the future Kris would meet many people with this title, but she would always stand out in his mind. She came to his house one day and said that she’d been invited by the leader of his Province to give him a present.

“What do I have to give you in return?” He asked, wary of things that were given with no strings attached.

“Nothing yet,” She answered, opening a box and laying out what looked to be a cluster of random bits of junk. She arranged them in a line on the kitchen table.

“You can pick one thing.”

He looked them over carefully, pausing for a moment when he came to a bright red crystal. It was small enough to fit in his hand, but when he picked it up it was very heavy. He stared at it for a long time before he finally put it down and moved on to look at the next item, which turned out to be a small pair of wings carved from some kind of material he’d never seen before. Kris held them in his hands—they were even smaller than the crystal, but they were much prettier. He ran his fingers over the feathers, feeling the tiny grooves of the carvings. Though the material was hard and smooth, Kris swore he could feel the feathers grow soft and fluffy under his touch.

“Do you want that one?” Matron asked.

“Yes, please,” he said.

“Then it’s yours,” she told him happily, and she gave him a thin piece of leather so that he could wear them around his neck.

It wasn’t until a week later that Matron came back to tell him about the 12 Guardians who protected the Tree of Life. He had already known about the tree of course, everyone knew about the tree! It was what had created their race, it was what allowed them to live to this day. He just didn’t know that people actually protected it.

“What does it need protecting from?” Kris had asked. Later, those words would come back to haunt him. What, not Who.

“It’s more like attending to its needs,” Matron had said. “Like a child.”

“The tree has needs?” Kris asked skeptically.

Matron nodded. “Of course.”

“So why did you pick me?” Kris asked.

Matron smiled. “' _We'_ didn’t pick you, the Tree picked you.”

“How do you know?”

She touched the spot on his chest where his birthmark was. “It left its mark on you.”

Kris touched the mark. She talked like it was a good thing, something he’d never thought it could be.

“Who’s guarding the tree now then?” He asked.

“The previous Guardians. Every few hundred years a new cycle of Guardians are born, and the old ones retire to lives of quiet study.”

“Hundred years?!” Kris echoed. “They don’t die?”

Matron shook her head. “Being a Guardian is a lifetime commitment. Even after they retire and the new Guardians take over, the old ones live on and make themselves available should the Tree ever need them again.” She bent down and looked him in the eye. “It’s a wonderful task,” she promised. “You’ll love it. It’s a great honor.”

Three days later he left his home to live in the Southern Sanctuary, where he would be educated and trained to care for the Tree of Life. His father cried when he left, his mother hugged him for the first time in his memory. But it was strange; she embraced him with one hand and kept the other one between their bodies, over her stomach. As they walked away from his house, Kris turned around. His father was waving, his mother was looking at the ground, still keeping her hand over her abdomen.

“She’s pregnant,” he muttered. Matron overheard.

“What?”

“She’s pregnant, and that’s why she doesn’t care that I’m leaving.” He paused. “No. She cares. She’s glad, I won’t be around to corrupt her new baby.”

Matron patted his head soothingly. He ducked away.

* * *

There was already another boy at the Southern Sanctuary; a baby, practically.

“This is Tao,” Matron told him. “He’s two. Tao, this is Kris. He’s five, so you have to listen to him. He’s your older brother now.”

Kris bit his lip. He would rather have been alone than in charge of babysitting this child. He didn’t understand children, he’d practically never been one himself. He didn’t want to be anyone’s older brother.

But he underestimated Tao. Much like him, the child was very bright; Kris discovered that in their first lesson together; Tao’s knowledge amazed him. As the weeks went by they sometimes had contests to see who could solve equations first, or who could make Teacher more surprised with what they already knew. They weren't like brothers, despite their age gap they were more like best friends. They did everything together, from lessons to playing. It was a wonderful feeling, to be needed by someone. To be adored, really—because anyone could see that Tao simply adored Kris.

Unlike Kris, however, Tao’s gift was apparent.

“Each of the twelve Guardians has a power, an affinity, given by the Tree of Life, in return for their service to it,” Teacher told them. “The gift is expressed in your birthmarks. Tao’s is time—he can freeze everything in time, but he will remain aware and mobile. Kris’ is flight.”

Kris dropped his pen in shock. “I can’t fly,” he protested.

“You will one day,” Teacher assured him. Everyone did, but even though Tao’s gift became more and more advanced, Kris’ was barely there.

After their lessons Kris would take Tao behind the Sanctuary to a small garden, where Kris would throw things in different directions and Tao would freeze time and run to catch them. There was a swing set near the garden, and sometimes the two of them would play on it. The closest Kris came to flying was when he would jump of the swing at its highest arch and land gracefully on his feet. Had anyone else done it they would have twisted their ankles, but he never got hurt.

Following their playtime, Tao would be forced to take a nap (Guardian or not he was still a child) and Kris would go to his room and stare at his reflection in his mirror. He was supposed to have wings—he had seen pictures of the other Guardians, and those with his power had wings. Matron told him that they were trapped under his skin, growing with his bones and muscle. But no matter how hard he tried, how much he focused, they would not come out.

Kris’ struggle with his gift was still running rampant when the other boys joined the Sanctuary. By that time, Kris was seven and Tao was four. The other two, Yixing and Lu Han, were six and seven respectively.

It came as quite a shock when Tao and Kris walked into the dining hall and found two young boys already seated at the small table. Matron stood behind them, stroking Lu Han’s hair. He looked like he very much wanted to cry, and the only thing restraining him was the belief that seven-year-olds did not weep.

Matron introduced the two newcomers and promptly left so that they’d have time to “get to know each other.” The second she had gone, Tao—bless his heart—walked over to Lu Han and patted his cheek gently.

“You can cry if you want to,” he’d said. “We understand how it feels to be scared.”

They all wound up crying that afternoon, although later Kris would say that it hadn’t been for how much he missed his home, but for how much he _didn’t_ miss it. They found comfort in each other and in knowing that they weren’t alone in their grief, whatever their reasons for it were. After that there was no room for awkwardness between them. Even more than brothers, they became each other’s lifelines. They were playful and caused all kinds of mischief and mayhem. They threw dirt and mud like paint at the outer walls of the sanctuary and pretended to be artists. They played tag and hide-and-seek in the libraries. They were serious, too. They pushed each other to be better in lessons and to learn on their own. The Masters led them in Meditation and they took it to heart, even doing it without being asked. They concentrated on bettering themselves and each other.

They were there when Lu Han became overwhelmed with nostalgia for his home. They comforted Tao when his nightmares made him scream himself awake. Two months into his stay, Yixing received a letter from the Guardians saying that his name would be changed to Lay to honor a dead scholar. He’d had a panic attack because he didn’t know who he was anymore, and Kris, Tao and Lu Han reminded him that his name did not dictate his personality. And when Kris became frustrated because he was still the only one without an obvious sign of his gift, his friends assured him that he belonged at the Sanctuary as much as they did. Even so, sometimes it felt like a knife was being thrust into his chest when he watched Lu Han throw rocks at Tao for him to freeze and catch, or when Lay ran around healing torn butterfly wings and sick birds.

It wasn’t until Kris was nine that his wings finally made their appearance, in the most painful way possible. The four of them were playing in the garden, or rather Tao and Kris were playing. Lay was openly wondering if he could help regrow a lizard’s lost tail, and Lu Han was covering his ears and trying very hard not to throw up. Kris was just about to warn Lay for the third time to shut up or _he_ would be the one who got to clean up vomit, when he felt the skin on his back shift. He dropped the rock he had been about to throw.

No, it wasn’t his skin shifting…it was something _under_ his skin. And it wanted out. _Now_.

Kris fell to the ground, eyes shut against the pain of his muscles tearing apart. He was vaguely aware that he was screaming, but he could no more stop it than he could stop the pain. He heard Lay screaming for a Matron, he heard Lu Han telling Tao to cover his eyes, and the next thing he knew he was in the Healers room with a Matron holding him up by his forearms.

“Don’t fight them,” she ordered. “If you do you’ll only prolong the agony.”

Kris dug his nails into her arms and bit his lip until he tasted blood. It hurt so much, and he could feel the pain growing stronger. If it didn’t stop, he was going to black out…

“Kris,” the Matron shouted, shaking him a little. “Do you want your wings or not?”

Kris shut his eyes and _screamed_ as his skin ripped open. He heard blood splatter the walls and felt a weight on his shoulders, but before he could see his wings he fainted.

When he woke up he was lying on his stomach, cocooned in the softest sheets he had ever felt. He buried his face into his pillow, wincing as the movement sent a tendril of pain down his back. It took a moment for him to remember why he was in so much pain, but when he did remember he shot straight up in his bed, heart pounding in the back of his throat. He looked around wildly and saw a mirror on the wall near the door, and he scrambled to get out of the bed. The sheets tangled around his legs coupled with the weight on his back meant that it took him awhile to even stand upright, but the second he had his balance back he rushed to the wall, nearly running headfirst into the mirror.

The first glance at his reflection made him clap his hands over his mouth to stifle his scream of shock. He stared, taking in his pale face, wide eyes and _by the Tree he had wings_.

His chest heaved as he tried to inhale properly; tears of joy sprang to his eyes. He hoped he wasn’t dreaming, he would die if he was dreaming. He shut his eyes and with a shaking hand he reached behind his back. He touched feathers and screamed again, this time in excitement.

Kris opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder, nearly whacking his face on the upper arch of one of his wings. He turned around in a circle, trying to twist his neck further and further around to see more of them before finally contenting himself with the mirror. They were absolutely huge, he probably had a seven-foot wingspan already, and covered in black feathers. As he studied them he noticed that they appeared to have an iridescence about them, as depending on how he angled his body they were either black, green, or purple. He couldn’t stop touching them, and he couldn’t stop grinning. They were gorgeous.

He heard a gasp and saw a Matron standing in the door. “Well, look who finally woke up.”

Kris was so giddy he couldn’t even get a complete sentence out. Matron laughed and lead him back to bed.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but right now there are three boys in the hallway who are very anxious to see you. Can I send them in?”

Kris nodded as he remembered the episode in the garden. He had no doubt that his friends would be frantic, heaven knew he would have been had he been in their situation. Matron opened the door and beckoned with her finger. In a blink Kris had three tearful boys at the foot of his bed.

“Don’t you ever scare us like that again,” Lu Han shouted, as Lay and Tao burst into simultaneous tears. Kris floundered for a second, he never had to deal with three crying boys at once before, if they ever all cried he usually cried with them.

“I’m okay, I promise,” he assured.

“You were clawing at the ground screaming your head off,” Tao hiccuped. Kris hadn’t remembered that part.

Unsure of what else to do, Kris asked if they wanted to see his wings. They all stopped crying at once and nodded eagerly. Kris turned around to give them a full view of his wings and heard gasps. Deciding to play it up, he fluttered them.

“Can I touch them?” Tao squealed. Kris grinned and nodded before giving his wings over to be petted. It felt kind of nice actually. Lay hung back, staring at Kris' back in awe.

“They won’t burn you, you can touch them,” Kris insisted. Lay crawled over and gently stroked his right wing, as though he was afraid it would break. Kris fluttered it again and Lay leapt back with a shriek, which had them all in a laughing fit.

They calmed down after a while; Kris settled back against the pillows cradling Tao in his lap, Lay and Lu Han made themselves comfortable at his sides.

“Can we stay with you tonight?” Lu Han asked.

Kris tightened his grip on Tao, put his right arm over Lu Han’s shoulders and rested his head atop Lay’s.

“I don’t think anyone could tear you away from me.”

* * *

Following Kris’ acquirement of his wings, the Teachers at the Sanctuary decided it was time to start seriously training them to use their Gifts.

“Why won’t the Guardians teach us?” Tao asked. The Teachers looked scandalized.

“They cannot leave the Tree,” they said. “Not even for you.”

Kris took offense to that—if they were Guardians too, shouldn’t they be taken seriously by the older generations? But he couldn’t exactly say that, so he kept his mouth shut.

The bad part about having the ability to fly meant that his body needed to change before he could actually achieve lift off. The Teachers told him that his bones needed to hollow out, a process which could take up to 10 years. He could fly in the meantime, but not too high or too far, because he was just physically unable.

And more than learning to fly Kris had to learn to take care of his wings, and boy were wings high maintenance! He had to keep his feathers clean and orderly, he had to be careful about what he leaned against, and since they were wide he had to watch where he stretched them. In three months he’d already knocked over several vases and portraits.

The other three didn’t really have this problem. For one thing they’d been using their gifts for ages, and they had at least an elementary grasp on their abilities. They were moving on to discovering their full potential; Lay was starting to bring dead plants back to life, and Lu Han was learning to take control of objects that were already in motion. Tao’s ability was so advanced that the Teachers really hadn’t been able to figure out what to do with him, not to mention that the gift of Time had always been a mystery, known only by those who possessed it, and they were notoriously unwilling to share its secrets. Finally it was decided that he would learn a different skill—an art of attack and defense known as Wushu.

For three years they trained to control their gifts, then one day the Master of the Sanctuary called them in to his room.

“It’s been decided that you will be sent to the Northern Sanctuary,” He informed them, “To continue your training with the rest of the Guardians.”

The four of them gaped at him.

“But we only have four,” Kris protested, picking the most practical reason why this move was not good, instead of whining that none of them wanted to leave home. “Aren’t their supposed to be six from each half of the planet?” The other three boys nodded feverishly, though Kris knew that each of them were also thinking only about how they just didn’t want to leave home.

The Master looked disgruntled for a second. “Yes, but occasionally it happens where one side will have a greater number than the other. This cycle has eight Guardians from the North.”

Kris wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea of them being outnumbered.

“The point is,” the Master went on, “We need to appoint a Southern Leader before we send you.”

He eyed them seriously and Kris shivered.

“So, who is it going to be?”

On cue Lay, Lu Han, and Tao looked at Kris.

“You’re kinda already our leader,” Tao whispered tentatively.

“Well then it’s settled,” The Master said. “We’ll hold the ceremony in two weeks and after that you’ll be on your way.”

Kris felt like a knife had been stuck into his gut. He knew they would have to go to the North eventually, they had the bigger Sanctuary (not to mention it was more equipped to help them develop their gifts), and after that they’d be off to the Tree, but the thought of leaving the South had never really hit him before.

Kris didn’t have time to dwell on that though, because then a Trainer had to be called to help him prepare for the ceremony. It was tedious work, full of rules and precise steps that had to be followed.

“The hallway of the Room of Ceremonies is fifty feet long,” Trainer told him. “You will need to stop every five feet and bow.”

So he needed to learn how to bow.

“What is your posture?!” She screamed at him. “Are you a farmer or a Guardian?”

Kris bit his lip against retorts and practiced until he perfected every step, until he could keep his face blank as was required, until his back and neck ached and he could feel his hollowing bones creak with his every step. But Trainer was satisfied and left.

A week before the ceremony a Matron saw him practicing walking and bowing in the hall.

“ _What_ are you doing?” She asked incredulously.

“It’s for the ceremony…” he said, unsure.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “That is the old way of doing it,” she said. “The Masters don’t expect ten bows from you. One at the beginning of the hallway and one at the end is fine, and on the way out don’t turn your back on them. Face them at all times. Do that and you’ll be fine.”

Kris hit his head against the wall when she left. He wasted a whole lot of time and effort on nothing, then.

The day of the ceremony everything went according to plan—he walked down the hall, sat in a large chair and drank some kind of potion the Masters brewed up. Tao, Lay and Lu Han were in the room too, faces schooled into perfectly blank masks. Kris did everything he was supposed to, but he felt unsettled. Something wasn’t right—it’s too rushed, too careless. The Masters barely looked at him, but when they did it sent chills down his spine. When he walked out of the ceremony, he didn’t feel any more like a leader than he did walking into it.


	3. Lost

_Lost._

Kris knew about the Lost—he’d never met one, he’d only heard about them, someone is his village back home had a relative who was Lost. There was no hope for them, they were like empty shells, their minds were, essentially, gone.

Kris fell to the ground, shaking his head.

“That can’t be,” Tao cried, echoing the only thing Kris could think. “He can’t…no. Not Lu Han,” Now he was pleading. “Not him. Kai, you take that back! You hear me?! Take it back!”

Tao was crying again. Kai pulled Kris to his feet and grabbed Tao’s arm. He started to pull them through the woods. They went a few hundred feet before they came to a small clearing which seemed to have been made by the battered pod in the middle of it. Kris recognized it as the one he and Tao had crashed in, and sitting near the entrance to the small pod was the youngest member of their group.

Sehun looked up when he heard them approach. Kris had a split second look at the utter depression on his face before shock overtook it, and then just as quickly a blissful smile replaced that.

“Tao! Kris! You’re alive!” Sehun yelled, running over and enveloping both of them in a bone-crushing hug. They only had a brief moment of happy reunion before Kai asked where Lu Han was. Immediately Sehun became sad again, and he gestured inside the pod. Kai went in and a few seconds later he emerged, tugging Lu Han along by the wrist.

When Kris knew Lu Han, he had been the kind of person who could melt the heart of the meanest person. He was pure-hearted, and he saw the good in everything. He was sunshine incarnate. The man in front of him was Lost. His face was completely devoid of emotion, of any feeling at all. He moved limply. The second Kai let go of his wrist he sat on the ground, drew up his legs and stared straight forward. He didn’t look at anyone, he didn’t even seem to know that he was in the company of four other people, all of whom had their eyes on him.

Tao knelt down in front of him and took hold his shoulders. “Lu Han, it’s me! It’s Tao! You remember me right?”

Lu Han stared ahead with blank eyes.

“Tao…” Kris whispered, “He can’t hear you.”

Tao shook Lu Han. “Say something! I know you’re there! I know you can hear me!” He was on the verge of hysteria. Lu Han had always loved Tao, he wouldn’t have made him suffer like this if he could help it.

Sehun grabbed Tao and pulled him back. “We’ve tried everything we could,” he told them. “He’s gone.”

“How?” Tao screamed. “He was fine! What happened?”

Kris was aware that he should have been doing something leader-ish, like making Lu Han come back to them, or telling Tao to stop screaming because who knew what was in this forest, but he was too busy thinking about the last moments on their ship. Asteroids had been flying all over the place, they were getting battered on all sides. If they didn’t move the ship, they’d be dead.

Or, if the asteroids didn’t move.

“Oh, no,” he breathed, staring at one of the people he truly thought of as his brother, “No, Lu Han, you didn’t…”

Kai seemed to know where Kris was. “We think he did.”

Tao stomped his foot. “Did what?” he demanded.

Sehun laid a hand on his arm. “He tried to force the asteroids away from our ship with his mind,” he explained. “He knew the ship hadn’t been built to weave through them, nor to stand up to them. He saved us all,” Sehun was trying to be gentle, but there was no easy way to say what had happened. To move something like an asteroid, by himself, would have taken a great toll on Lu Han’s brain. Kris didn’t know if any of the psychokinetic Guardians could have managed the feat and come away from it with their brains intact.

“He did this for us, then?” Tao asked, his voice cracking. Sehun nodded. Tao fell to his knees in tears. For once, Kris could not think of a way to comfort him.

* * *

Kris made Kai and Sehun tell him exactly what had happened, starting with their ejection from the ship. According to them, they hadn’t noticed anything wrong with Lu Han until after their pod had landed. They passed out, and when they had woken up they realized that something wasn’t right. At first they thought it was a concussion and Lu Han would heal from it, but eventually it became clear that it was not an injury he could heal from. They left their pod and started walking, taking turns carrying Lu Han on their backs—he could walk, he just didn’t go where he was told. It had taken them weeks to get to Kris and Tao’s pod, and they only covered about 10 miles. They agreed that they couldn’t go on, not with Lu Han in the shape that he was. They didn’t know what this planet held and they couldn’t protect him and themselves at the same time.

According to Kai, the sun had set 3,079 times since he and Sehun had woken up. Kris did the math. The years on this planet consisted of 365 days. They had been here for over 8 years.

“What happened to the citizens of the planet?” Kris asked, remembering that Kai had alluded to them being gone.

Kai shrugged. “Who knows. One day we woke up and there were huge ships flying over our heads. It took almost 8 days for all of them to disappear. We hid in the pod until they were gone, and when we came out we just knew that we were alone.”

Had Kris been standing his legs would have collapsed under him. “Alone? Totally? They’re all gone?”

Sehun nodded. “There’s nobody left on this planet but us.”

The silence stretched on as Tao and Kris struggled to absorb that information. “Then…the planet was evacuated?” Tao finally asked.

_An alarm, screeching down the halls, sending the coats into a flurry._

_“Abandon the project, save yourselves!”_

_“There’s nothing we can do.”_

“They’d either evacuated or died,” Kai said bluntly. “I assume a lot of them were already dead by the time the ships started leaving. There were supposed to be billions and billions of people on this world, even if a thousand ships had left they weren’t big enough to support the entire population.”

“The doctors knew,” Kris muttered. “That one—the lady who liked me—she was supposed to kill us. But she didn’t, she knocked us out and left us alive. They must have been among the last to evacuate.”

Kris tried to think of what could force an entire population to abandon its planet. Famine, incurable disease, climate change, natural disasters, a combination of all of those things…even then, an empty world was unimaginable to him.

“Oh,” Sehun cried, making them jump. “We almost forgot!” He ran into the pod, when he came out he was holding a very familiar chest.

_‘If it’s split in two, it will be harder to corrupt.’_

“The heart!” Kris and Tao gasped at the same time.

Sehun nodded. “We found it when we got here. I guess those doctors didn’t think it was worth taking with them. We kept it safe.”

Kris took the chest from Sehun and held it to his chest. He felt the warmth of the heart through the thick wood. It was alive.

“It survived,” he sighed happily. “It made it!”

This was the best news of all. This had been their mission, to hide the heart of the Tree of Life where it could never be corrupted. They hadn’t failed yet, all they needed was the second half and the rest of the Guardians.

“Well, now that we have the heart and there’s four of us around to help Lu Han, we should try to track down everyone else,” Tao announced, getting to his feet.

Kai scowled. “Let them stay wherever they are,” he said scathingly.

Kris set the chest down and put his hand on Kai’s shoulder. “I know you feel like you were abandoned,” he said, “But we don’t know what condition everyone else is in. They might be hurt or trapped like we were, we have to find them.”

He looked to Sehun for backup, but the youngest also seemed reluctant. “This planet is huge,” he said. “How can we possibly hope to find all of them? If they haven’t already found us, then they’re probably not anywhere nearby. How far are we willing to go to track them down?”

Kris pulled the pair of them to their feet. “We’ll be around for a very long time,” he reminded them. "I think we can spare the effort. At any rate we can’t possibly live in this forest for the rest of our lives.”

That last part at least seemed to get to them. Kris took some of the clothes from his bag and handed them over to Kai and Sehun, as the ones they were wearing were beyond saving. Once they were changed the four of them managed to redress Lu Han. Tao offered to carry Lu Han on his back first, Kai took the heart and Kris kept the bag. Sehun walked behind Tao, making sure Lu Han didn’t fall. They set off in the opposite direction from the laboratory, since they hadn’t seen anything in that direction.

They broke out of the woods after a few hours and found themselves at the edge of what had once been a small town. The place was eerily silent, and though they were alone they stuck close to each other. About midway through the town they came upon what had once been a shop, though now the forest had all but claimed it back. The door hung off its hinges and the windows were smashed with tree limbs growing out of them, but Kris could see bags of food inside.

“Let’s go find out if there’s anything worth eating in there,” he suggested.

They found water and bags of thin, crispy foods. The package said they were called “Chips.”

“This place is weird,” Sehun muttered even as he grabbed another packet. When they left the shop again, Kai pointed up the path.

“What is that?” He asked. Kris squinted in the direction he was pointing.

“I think it’s called a car,” he said. “It’s like a carriage, but it moves without horses.”

“How the heck does it do that?” Sehun wondered.

“It’s got to do with motors and gasoline,” Kris said vaguely. He read extensively about the technology of this world but he really didn’t feel like explaining it right now, especially since (and now he was getting hopeful) there was a chance that rather than talk about it, he could make it work again.

Kris ran over to the thing and peered into the window. The keys were still inside. He looked into the back and it appeared to be empty.

“If only we had a Technopath in our midst,” Kris sighed before he pulled a zipper off his bag and bent the metal into a workable shape so he could pick the lock.

It took very little effort for him to open the door, but it took a lot of effort to coax the car into working. He had to fiddle around with the engine for a while, but when it finally turned on he deemed it well worth the effort.

“Is it safe?” Tao asked, eying the thing with suspicion. Kris nodded.

“Perfectly, and it’s better than walking.”

Well, there was no arguing that point.

Kris was the driver since he knew the most about the car. Tao sat in the front with the heart and Kai and Sehun rode in the back with Lu Han. Initially they had to hold him up, since Kris had a habit of applying too much pressure to the break and gas. Eventually he got it, and they made their way out of the town and down the mountain that they had apparently been on. Once they got to the bottom the road flattened out across a plain of what appeared to be fields of weeds with the odd tree amongst them. In the distance the horizon jutted up unevenly, like mountains, but the more Kris looked the more he realized they were buildings. They drove along the flat land until they came upon another store and Kris stopped the car.

“We should get some more supplies,” he said. “Who knows how long we’ll be traveling for, that city looks further away than a days' drive.”

This was a much larger establishment and had more than just food; they found clothes, appliances and even some toys. They grabbed some more clothes and checked out the drinks along the walls (Tao took a liking to one brand called Cola) and at some point they realized they’d lost Lu Han. There was an initial panic before he wandered over by himself, clutching a toy in his hands.

“What has he got?” Kai asked, hands over his heart. He seemed to need something to focus on besides how much he wanted to kill their eldest for scaring him half to death.

Kris eyed the package. “It’s a Rubik’s Cube. It’s like a puzzle.”

Lu Han held it out. Sehun grabbed it and tore the packaging off before handing it back.

“Does he do this often?” Tao wondered.

“What, wander off?” Kai asked. Tao shook his head.

“No, take an interest in things around him…strange things that most people wouldn’t notice.”

Kai waved his hands. “He picks things up off the ground and tosses them up in the air.”

Kris’ heart lurched. He’d done that with Tao when they were children.

“Sometimes he’ll bring acorns over and stare at us until we take the heads off,” Sehun threw in.

Lu Han was twisting the thing in his hands, staring at it intently. They watched him for a few moments before Kai went back to grabbing food.

“Well as long as he’s happy and doesn’t wander off again, I’m happy too.”

By the time they exited the store the sun was going down, and Kris decided that it was probably best if they waited until daylight to drive to the looming city. There was no use exploring foreign territory in the dark, after all.

They slept in the car that night—Kris and Tao in the two front seats and the other three stretched out in the back. It was cramped and uncomfortable, but it was better than sleeping outside or even in the store. When Kris woke up at dawn the next morning, he saw in the mirror over the window that Lu Han was already awake and playing with his Rubik’s cube. Their eyes met over the toy and for a brief second Kris thought he saw a flash of recognition cross Lu Han’s face, but he blinked and it was gone.

Kris woke up the other three, and the whole time Lu Han didn’t look away from him. As Kris was preparing to pass around the food they’d collected, he saw Lu Han lean forward from the corner of his eye.

“Hello, Tao.”

In that moment it went so silent that Kris swore he heard every one of their hearts beating. He slowly turned his head to face Tao and Lu Han. Now he realized that Lu Han hadn’t been staring at him, but at Tao. He had his hand on Tao’s shoulder and was smiling brightly, exactly the way Kris remembered him. Tao’s mouth was open in shock, but his hand was resting on top of Lu Han’s.

“Hello, yourself,” Tao managed.

Lu Han smiled wider and leaned back in his seat, resuming his twisting of the cube.

For a long time they all stared at Lu Han. Kris didn’t know if they were waiting for him to speak again or if they were just stunned, but finally Sehun broke the permeating silence.

“What just happened?”

Kai jumped, hand over his chest. “Alright now, don’t get your hopes up,” he said, “But we may have been wrong about him being Lost.”

Kris shut his eyes and forced himself to remain calm. If that was true, it would be beyond miraculous. But that was a very big _if_.

“Can you elaborate on that?” Tao asked.

Kai ran his fingers through his hair. “The Lost do not speak,” he said firmly, “They cannot do it. That part of their brain is gone. But since he did speak, that means that that part of his brain is still intact…”

“But we’ve tried to make him talk for years,” Sehun protested. “Why only now?”

Kai leaned forward with his face in his hands. “I wonder,” he muttered, “If it’s because Kris and Tao are here.”

Kris' mind sprinted along to where Kai was.

“We’re always stronger as a group,” he remembered. “Everything from our powers…”

“To our healing abilities,” Kai finished. “So maybe this was an injury that could be at least partially healed but he wasn’t strong enough to do it—it’s actually quite possible that the only reason he could move as much as he did was because Sehun and I were always with him.”

“So do you think that once we get everyone back together, his brain will heal itself?” Sehun asked, and everyone could see that his hopes were way, way up.

“Now hold on,” Kai warned, “What Lu Han did with the asteroids was monumental and dangerous. There’s no way he can come away from that unscathed.”

“So, what does that mean?” Tao asked. “Parts of his brain might still be damaged?”

“Exactly,” Kai said. “He might recover a few things, but I don’t think he’ll ever be 100% better.”

There was more silence as each of them tried to absorb that statement.

“Can you guess a percent?” Sehun whispered. “Or…can you guess if one day he’ll…” he trailed off and bit his lips shut against sobs.

Kris twisted his head a little farther to get a good look at his youngest brother, who was hunched over with his head down to hide his tears. He remembered now, Lu Han and Sehun had been in love for years, they had practically been married by the Tree of Life itself. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the hell Sehun must have been stuck in all these years. Losing the one you loved was horrible, but how must it have felt to see your beloved every day and know that they didn’t recognize you? And now to hear that Lu Han might get better, but he might still not remember that the two of them had been in love…it was heartbreaking for Kris to think about, what must Sehun be feeling?

Kai reached around Lu Han and patted Sehun's arm. “Lu Han has always loved you,” he reminded Sehun. “Even if he can’t say it, I know he remembers who you are.”

“He might be regaining his memories in order,” Tao cut in. “When he came to the Southern Sanctuary I was the first person who greeted him—that’s probably why he reached out to me just now.”

Kai nodded enthusiastically. “It’s a good sign,” he said. “If Lu Han can remember Tao, he’ll definitely remember you.”

Sehun wiped his face off on his sleeve and looked up at Kris. “What do you think?”

Kris knew that Sehun didn’t like it when people lied to him to make him feel better, so Kris wasn’t going to give him false hope now.

“I don’t know what to think,” he admitted. “Kai’s the one who studied medicine, so I think he knows a lot more than I do. I do think that right now the best thing to do would be to track down everyone else so we can see if this theory works.”

Sehun nodded solemnly and Kris took that as his cue to start driving.

It took them less than an hour to get to the city, though Kris probably drove a little faster than he should have. From far away it had looked very similar to the cities back on their planet, even if it was a lot bigger—both in how much territory it took up and in the sheer size of the buildings. As they entered the city though, Kris thought that it couldn’t have been a more unfamiliar and eerie place.

“It’s so bizarre,” Kai murmured. “It’s so huge and yet so empty…it’s a very lonely feeling.”

Kris figured that was a good way to put it, though he would have added that it felt like death.

At that thought Kris shuddered and abruptly stopped the car.

“This is creepy,” he blurted. “This is creepy on so many levels…part of me thinks we should get out and walk but the other part…”

“I know what you mean,” Tao said. “I don’t want to have to be here any longer than we need to be.”

They all sat in the car for a few minutes.

“Okay,” Kai finally cried, startling all of them. “This is silly. We’re Guardians of the Tree of Life. We are fighters, we have power. And we’re scared of what?”

“Emptiness,” Sehun whispered.

Kai hesitated for a half second. “Well we need to get used to it. This whole planet is empty and we can’t be afraid of it. Now on the count of three we all get out of this car at the same time. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Kris said, gripping the handle of the door.

“One,” Kai counted.

“Two,” They unlatched the doors.

“Three.”

They flung their doors open and stepped out. As soon as their feet hit the ground, Kris could tell they all felt the same thing. Sehun was the one who said it.

“Someone is here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being Lost is akin to being in a Permanent Vegetative State.


	4. The Gathering

They needed to take a train to get to the Northern Sanctuary. For Tao and Kris, it was their first time on a train. Lay and Lu Han took one to get to the Southern Sanctuary, and Tao and Kris bombard them with questions.

“Does it go any faster?”

“What makes it run?”

“What if it went off the track?”

They couldn’t answer most of the questions, but the four of them had fun making up their own answers. It distracted them from how terrified they all were.

They heard that the North was very different from the South. For one thing it was much colder, and for another it was a great deal more sophisticated. The South was where all the farms were, since it was more suitable for growing foods. The North was where the largest cities were, with buildings that extended into the sky and noisy crowds—not that they’d get to see any of that, since the Sanctuaries were secluded, but the other Guardians would have grown up in that environment. How would they be welcomed, if at all?

They were all terrified anyway when they got off the train, and the first thing the realized was that the books weren’t kidding when they said the North was cold. It was the first time any of them had ever seen snow, but they didn’t enjoy it at all. Even with extra cloaks and fur-lined boots the four of them were shivering. The Matrons who came to fetch them from the train were sympathetic and promised them that the sanctuary would be much warmer, but the carriage ride there was agonizingly slow, as the horses couldn’t move as fast when the ground was covered in ice and slush. By the end of it Tao and Lay were near tears because they felt so miserable, and Kris and Lu Han weren’t holding up very well either.

“I wish we didn’t have to come here,” Tao whined. He had thrown himself into Kris’ lap the moment they’d gotten in the stupid carriage, and Kris could feel him shivering. “Why can’t everyone just come to the South? It’s warmer and nicer and we have food that doesn’t have to be preserved and brought in on trains and in cans!”

Kris didn’t bother to try and shush him. He was wondering the same thing himself.

They practically raced in the Sanctuary, which was warmer—though they kept their heavy sweaters on anyway because it was still colder than what they were used to. They were told that the other boys were still in their lessons, which Kris found just rude. Whenever they had important guests at the South, they had been required to greet them even if they arrived during class time. Would a thirty minute break really have been such a horrible thing for the learning process? But this wasn’t exactly the most polite thing to say when just walking in someone’s front door.

They were taken to a dining hall and given warm drinks and some kind of bread, but it all tasted different and they were so nervous that they could only force down a few bites. Then they were taken to meet the Master of the Sanctuary…only it turned out that he wasn’t alone.

“Good afternoon, boys,” the Master greeted in a gravelly voice, and eight heads whipped around at once to stare at them.

“Well, that’s nice,” Lu Han muttered sarcastically. Kris also thought a bit of warning would have been nice—even just a casual 'Oh yeah and the rest of your generation of Guardians are gathered there too.' They were standing against the wall on the right of the room, and they were all blatantly staring at the four of them. Kris squared his shoulders and stared right back, easily identifying the leader—he didn’t seem to be the oldest, but his body language was completely different from the others. He held himself in such a way that he seemed to be ready to fling himself in front of the other boys if he needed too. He had clearly been a leader a lot longer than Kris had. The youngest was also easily identifiable, and he seemed even younger than Tao. He still had a round baby-face and an innocent look about him, and he was holding hands with the two boys on either side of him.

The Master cleared his throat and everyone directed their attention back to him.

“Don’t worry, you’ll all have time to get to know each other later.”

Though his voice was rough with age, the Master spoke in a clear manner, which Kris hoped the other boys would also do. Technically there was supposed to be only one language on their planet, but the North and South had vastly different dialects. They studied the Northern dialect in lessons, but they were nowhere near fluent in it. For Kris it had been especially hard, since in his village they had spoken two languages—the Southern dialect and a language that wasn’t even close to anything spoken on the planet. It had been introduced several hundred years ago and was supposedly a language found on a planet in another galaxy. Either way, none of the kids from this side of the planet spoke it, and as the leader he was at a severe disadvantage.

The Master continued, “You’ve all been given three days off from lessons to get acquainted.”

The other boys looked ecstatic at this news. Kris and Lay exchanged looks of disbelief. Three days? That was nothing.

“And I would like to take this time to personally introduce the two boys who will be joining the Southern Guardians.” The Master stood up and beckoned two of the boys forward. “Chen and Xiumin will train specifically to work with the Southern group in their duties.”

Really the divide between the groups was a joke—it was mostly a time share thing. The Guardians were not only responsible for the Tree, but for the people of the planet. Mostly that meant that they heard Court cases which couldn’t be resolved by Village leaders and the like. Southern and Northern Guardians were supposed to take turns hearing cases and caring for the tree, but it wasn’t like the groups were ever really separated for long.

Lay kicked Kris in the shin and snapped into leader mode, bowing to the two. “It will be an honor to work with you,” he said, making sure to speak slowly and clearly. Then he turned to the other six. “It will be an honor to work with all of you.”

The Master smiled. “Flawlessly polite,” he proclaimed. “Maybe you can teach this bunch of ruffians a lesson.”

Kris knew that he, Tao, Lay and Lu Han were all thinking the same thing. _Huh?_

The Master stood up and waved his hand at them. “Alright boys, let’s all be good, yes? Suho, show them their rooms and then take the rest of the day for a tour. And be nice,” he warned as he walked over to a side door (probably leading to his personal room). For an elderly man he sure moved fast, and before Kris could even figure out what was happening, the Master was gone and the twelve of them were alone. There were a few seconds of the most awkward silence Kris had ever experienced before the leader—Suho?—cleared his throat.

“So…um…” he clearly struggled to hide his accent. “I guess we should…get going.”

They filtered out into the hallway and the youngest boy from the Northern group scurried over and grabbed hold of Lu Han’s hand, yelling something from which Kris only understood “Pretty.” Suho sputtered while the other Northerners seemed torn between amusement and embarrassment.

“What did you say?” Lu Han asked. The little one beamed up at him and said nothing. Kris looked at Suho, who was clearly flustered.

“Uh, that’s Sehun, he’s seven. And…he said ‘I want to walk with the pretty one.’”

There was a half second of stunned silence and then Lu Han gasped. “Really? He thinks I’m pretty?” He squealed. “Oh that is so cute! That’s totally precious!”

He spoke so fast that Kris barely understood him. When Suho looked at him for a translation, Kris just shook his head.

“Don’t worry,” he told Suho. “Lu Han thinks he’s adorable.”

Suho grinned. It seemed as if the ice had been, if not broken, at least cracked.

* * *

Kris grouped them all by age in his head. Xiumin was eleven, same as himself and Lu Han. Suho and Lay were both ten. Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Chen were nine. Kyungsoo and Tao were the same age, eight, and Kai and Sehun were the babies, both seven years old.

Over the first three days he learned that Kai and Sehun were attached at the hip, and for whatever reason Sehun thought Lu Han was the greatest person on earth and followed him around like a baby goose followed its mother (which Lu Han found unbearably sweet). Kai took to following Lu Han around by default since he never allowed Sehun out of his sight. Lu Han and Tao were supposed to share a room, but Sehun and Kai were in there so often that Tao offered to switch rooms with them. More often than not Tao wound up in Kris and Xiumin’s room anyway, so it hardly mattered.

Xiumin roomed with him and Chen roomed with Lay, as a way for them to learn to work together and hopefully establish stronger communication. Kris didn’t mind since Xiumin was neat and quiet. Or at least, he was around Kris. Otherwise he was also very bubbly and cheerful. Chen was shy but smiled a lot, Chanyeol smiled at everything that moved, and Kai smiled _and_ pouted like it was a sport and he was number one. Kyungsoo always looked like he had no idea why he was where he was, Suho acted like he had everything under control when it was obvious he was just as clueless as Kyungsoo, and Kris was still trying to work out what was going on with Baekhyun, who disappeared for hours at a time and nobody seemed to know where he went.

Once Kris got over how cold it was, he began to appreciate the Northern Sanctuary, if only for the vast library. Back in the South he practically lived in the library and he had read every single book they had. Kris was greatly interested in planets outside his own solar system, and the South had a very small collection of works about those other systems, but the North had thousands, and Kris was determined to read them all.

He wasn’t the only one who took to lurking in the library though. When Kai wasn’t with Sehun he was in the library, and he seemed drawn to all the medical books. For a seven year old, Kris found that very impressive. Chanyeol was another one who came to the library often, although Kris was beginning to wonder if that was more to do with the boy’s fascination with _him_ than his desire to read. In the first week, when Kris wasn’t in lessons he was in the library trying to find places that Chanyeol couldn’t find. It’s not that he disliked the kid, it was just weird being followed like that, at least Tao had spoken to him, Chanyeol just watched.

Kris also found himself spending more and more time reading the biographies of the other Guardians who possessed the gift of Flight as he did, because it was the only way he learned anything about his gift. He knew that when his bones hollowed out it would hurt; he’d been living with a constant ache in his body for the last three years. Maybe it was because he missed the South so much, but the pain had gotten progressively worse since he’d arrived and he had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t supposed to be that bad. It went beyond an annoying ache, it was to the point where he couldn’t concentrate in his lessons because his body felt like it was being cleaved in two. He wanted answers, but he was never satisfied.

On the eighth day since their arrival at the North, Chanyeol tracked Kris down in the Medical section of the library. Kris was sitting on the floor with a book in his lap, holding his head in his hands and willing his eyes to focus.

“You look pale,” he heard. Kris looked up at his not-so-little shadow.

Chanyeol wasn’t smiling. It was the first time Kris had ever seen him look so serious. “Maybe you should go see the Healers.”

Kris shook his head but stopped quickly since it made pain shoot through his brain and down his neck. The feathers on his wings even seemed to hurt.

“I don’t need them,” Kris tried to assure him. He stood up and swayed on his feet. “It’ll go away just as soon as I…”

He never got to finish his sentence. He later found out that he’d dropped to the floor in a dead faint and Chanyeol had barely managed to keep him from cracking his skull open on the stone floor.

Kris woke up a few hours later in the Healer’s room with Suho and Chanyeol sitting next to his bed. He had one moment of clear thought before the pain came back to him. He squeezed his eyes shut and Suho stood up, saying something about getting a healer. Kris grabbed hold of his wrist and looked Suho dead in the eye.

“Don’t let anyone in here.”

Suho looked startled and Kris held on tighter. “I mean it,” he whispered, his voice already laced with pain. “I don’t want them to see this.”

Kris saw the look of understanding on Suho’s face as he realized what, or who, Kris was referring to.

“Don’t worry,” he assured, patting Kris’ hand. “I’ll tell them you’re asleep.”

Kris loosened his grip on Suho. “Don’t leave them alone, especially not Tao. He’ll try to sneak away.”

Suho nodded and stood up. “I’ll watch them for you.”

Kris let his arm fall back on the bed and he shut his eyes. The exchange had taken less than a minute but it had sapped his energy. He had a nagging thought that he’d forgotten something very important though…

Oh. Right.

He opened his eyes again. Yep, the shadow was still there.

“That includes you,” he muttered through clenched teeth. If he started crying or something he didn’t want any witnesses, but Chanyeol stubbornly grabbed the arms of his chair.

“I’m staying right here,” he said firmly.

Kris glared at him. Chanyeol held his gaze.

“Why? Who put you up to it?” Kris finally asked.

Chanyeol looked away. Kris shut his eyes, figuring he’d won, but a minute later he felt someone take his hand.

“Nobody put me up to it,” Chanyeol told him. “I’ve been where you are right now.”

Kris opened his eyes halfway. “What?”

Chanyeol wasn’t looking at him. “I have the gift of Fire,” he explained. “It’s made my body temperature sky rocket.” He looked up then, and Kris saw remnants of pain in his eyes. “Do you know how much it hurts when your body is literally burning?”

Kris’ bones felt like they were on fire. “I guess it feels like this,” he muttered. The pain flashed white hot and he bit down on his lip to stop a scream. When it faded he realized he was digging his fingers into Chanyeol’s hand.

“Sorry,” he said. Or tried to say, but came out more like a pained whimper. Chanyeol shook his head.

“It’s okay. You can squeeze harder if it gets really bad.”

Kris was pretty sure he heard Chanyeol’s fingers crack several times over the next few hours, and to his credit Chanyeol never pulled his hand away. Kris apologized whenever he thought it appropriate. After about the sixth time Chanyeol told him to cut it out, but Kris shook his head.

“It keeps me from getting too wrapped up in my own pain,” Kris told him. But he did stop apologizing after that.

As the night progressed it got even worse, with flashes of intense, black-out inducing pain becoming more and more frequent. The Healers were at a loss for what to do and all they could really do was give him crushed herbs that would reduce the pain, but the stuff tasted horrible on a normal day, and in Kris’ state he couldn’t keep it down. Finally they said that he’d just have to ride it out.

Kris kept expecting to wake up from the blackouts and find Chanyeol gone, but of course he was always there. The farthest he moved was from the chair onto the bed, and that was because Kris told him to lie down or he’d probably faint. After that he woke up to Chanyeol’s hair in his face, but really it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Around dawn Kris finally fell asleep—well it was either that or he fainted. He was knocked out for almost the whole day, and when he woke up the sun had set, pain was gone and Chanyeol was sitting next to him eating a plate of cookies.

“They were supposed to be for you,” he said. “But I got hungry.”

Kris stared at him in shock. “I can’t believe…” but he stopped. For some reason, he could actually believe that Chanyeol had stayed with him the whole time. That was just the kind of person he was, the kind of person they all were. What he felt for Tao, Lay and Lu Han—that was what _all_ of them felt for each other.

Kris was informed that Suho had not left Tao’s side through the whole ordeal, and he even let Tao sleep in his bed. Apparently Tao had been quite the wreck—Kris was the closest thing to a brother—to a parent really—that Tao had, and knowing that Kris was suffering was a special kind of torture for him. For all of them, but Lay and Lu Han were much better at dealing with such things. Tao was sensitive, and he wore his heart on his sleeve, so he was the one who wound up bursting into tears at dinner. Kris was also informed that all of the other Guardians were so worried for Tao that they spent the whole day thinking of ways to distract him and keep him in a productive mood. That was where the cookies had come from.

“It worked both ways,” Chanyeol said, spraying crumbs all over the place. “It was a distraction for everyone and also a ‘Get Well Soon’ gift for you.”

Well after that, there was no going back to awkward glances and short conversations, for anyone. The event pulled them together in ways they couldn’t have imagined. They had practically been hardwired to love each other; all Guardians were. When you were fated to live together for eternity, the Tree took extra care to make sure you’d all get along. Now the feeling had clicked between the two groups, and it was hard for any of them to imagine life apart.

* * *

That wasn’t to say that there weren’t times that Kris questioned how the lot of them could have grown up on the same planet. The Master hadn’t been kidding when he’d called the Northern kids “a bunch of ruffians.” They were loud, hyperactive, snarky and disobedient. Only with each other though; never with the teachers or anyone else. The funniest thing had to be when they tried to meditate as a group for the first time. At one point Kris had felt like he was being watched and he opened his eyes a bit to find himself and the other three Southerners the subject of disbelieving stares.

“How do you do that?” Chen demanded.

“It’s easy,” Lay insisted.

“It’s not,” Kyungsoo retorted. “We’ve never been able to get through more than fifteen minutes of this!”

Meditation became more like teasing time then, with Kris, Tao, Lu Han and Lay bragging about how easy it was and how relaxed they all felt at the end of it, and everyone else muttering about “crazy Southerners and their hippie attitudes.” They had no idea what a hippie was, but it didn’t matter.

The times when they trained to use their gifts were much more fun. Kris especially enjoyed watching Chanyeol manipulate fire—it was fascinating to him. Similarly, Chanyeol was mesmerized by Kris’ wings.

“When the Matron came to test my affinity, I almost picked the Wings,” Chanyeol admitted once. “They were so pretty…I only picked the fire crystal after she told me to look at all the other things there.”

Kris was stunned. “I almost picked the fire crystal,” he confessed.

They asked the others if they’d had trouble picking out their affinity object during the test, but all of them said no, they went right to their respective objects. After that, Chanyeol and Kris came to a mutual decision not to talk about it again.

When the lot of them weren’t training, meditating, or learning, they would go exploring in the forest behind the Sanctuary. The North may have been the industrial area, but there was one undisturbed mountain left, and the Sanctuary was built on it.

They had to avoid the woods during the coldest months, since the snow and ice made everything slippery, but once the snow melted and the runoff stopped, they would spend hours hiking. They always turned back at about the halfway point; or at least they did for the first few years.

It was about two weeks after Kai’s tenth birthday, and it was the first nice day they’d had in a month. They had barely waited to be dismissed from their lessons before they were rushing out of the Sanctuary. The air smelled so fresh, and the woods were so alive that when they got to their usual stopping point they all agreed that it was too nice to go back and be cooped up inside studying, so they kept moving forward, Kris and Suho in the lead. They didn’t talk much, as it got steeper along the way and they needed to save their breath. The trees got thinner and the ground grew rocky, there weren’t as many birds up there, and it was quiet save for their heavy breathing.

After about an hour of intense climbing, the ground flattened. Suho was clutching his sides and everyone was winded.

“Let’s take a break,” Suho panted before he collapsed on the ground.

They all collapsed flat on their backs and stared at the clouds while they waited for their pulses to calm. They were sweaty and hot, but even lying flat they could feel a cool breeze. After a minute Kris felt his eyelids grow heavy, a glance to the side showed Tao already asleep. Kris shut his eyes and allowed himself to drift off. He thought it would be nice to stay here forever—it was so peaceful and nice, the breeze was cool and the sun was warm, and it was nice and quiet…

It was too quiet.

Kris was overwhelmed by a sudden sense of wrongness. This whole situation wasn’t right—it was too quiet, too cold and he felt a prickling on the back of his neck like he was being watched. He threw himself upright, across from him Suho did the same. Around them eight boys were out cold. Only eight.

“Where’s Kai?” Suho gasped, looking around wildly. Kris looked too and his blood ran cold when he realized who else was gone.

“Where’s Tao?!” He screamed, jumping to his feet. The others started to rouse, but Kris paid them no attention. His wings were twitching, the feathers ruffled up like they did when he was afraid. He turned in a circle.

“Tao! Kai!”

He saw them then. They were fifty paces away, off the path and walking into the trees. They didn’t turn around, they didn’t stop. Something was definitely wrong.

Kris ran to the edge of the path and teetered on the brink between the grass and the rocky path. He didn’t want to cross it, he had a bad feeling about crossing it.

“Both of you get back here now!” He hollered. They froze.

“Kai! Tao! I know you can hear me! You come over here!”

They turned to face him and he stumbled back. Even from this distance he could tell that their faces were totally blank. There was no sign of recognition, of any emotion at all…they almost looked like dolls.

Suho started yelling as well. “You need to come back! This isn’t right, we need to go!”

The two of turned around and started walking again. The moment seemed to freeze as they each prepared to put their foot down. Kris felt panic strangling him, stealing his breath.

“Don’t!” He and Suho screamed as they watched their feet touch the earth; or what had been earth and was now air. It took less than a second for the hole to appear and swallow the pair of them.

Kris flew into the woods, all thought of staying on the path gone. He heard Suho crashing through the shrubbery behind him, and part of Kris wondered if they too were in danger of being swallowed. Then he heard screams from the pit and forgot that fear, too.

He skidded to a halt at the edge of the opening. Tao was clinging to a root about ten feet down, and he had grabbed Kai by the hand. Tao looked up and Kris saw the raw fear in his eyes.

“I can’t hold on!” Tao screamed up at him.

“It’s okay,” Kris called, even though it was anything but okay, “I’ll get you out of there!”

Suho was next to him now. “What do we do?”

Kris couldn’t see the bottom of the pit- it was all a black mass, he had no idea how deep it was but if one or both of them fell, they would probably not survive. He needed to get Kai out first, since there was no way that he could pull them both out at the same time.

Kris felt a tug on his sleeve and saw Sehun standing next to him. “I’ll create a draft,” he said. Kris could see that he was afraid, but he was willing to do what he had to in order to save his best friends.

Kris nodded. “Wait until I give you a signal that I’ve got them.” He looked around at the others who were now gathered around. “Only me, Suho and Sehun need to be here, the rest of you go back to the path and stay there.”

He didn’t even wait to see if his orders were followed before he leapt off the edge, his wings springing open and catching the air. He managed not to fall too fast; flying down was hard, but hovering was something he could barely do, and he was now trying to hover next to Kai, who was scared out of his mind and not keen on letting go.

“It’s alright,” Kris soothed as he held Kai’s arm, “I won’t drop you, I promise.”

Kai was shaking and honestly Kris had no idea if he could carry him, even with Sehun’s help. Kai seemed to know that.

Kris flew closer. “Kai you have to let go,” he commanded. Kai shook his head.

“Kai!” Sehun yelled. “It’s okay, I’ll help you!”

Kai shut his eyes and let go of Tao’s hand.

“Now!” Kris yelled to Sehun as he wrapped his arms around Kai. The draft came suddenly and shot the two of them out of the pit. Evidently Sehun was more powerful than they’d known. Kris literally threw Kai at Suho and then he jumped back into the pit to get Tao.

“Come on,” he urged, holding his arms out. “It’s your turn.”

Tao wasn’t looking at him. He was staring down into the pit.

“Tao, come on!” Kris pleaded.

Tao looked up at him and Kris felt the air leave his lungs. The fear in his eyes was something Kris had never seen before. It went beyond fear of falling, of even death.

“I can hear it,” Tao gasped. “It’s speaking.”

Even though every cell in his body was screaming at him not to do it, Kris looked down. The blackness that he’d thought was just shadow was moving. Whirling, twisting, coming closer to them. And it _was_ speaking.

Kris didn’t even think to signal to Sehun before he grabbed Tao off of the root and shot out of the pit himself. He didn’t think about the strain on his wings, he didn’t worry that the weight would be too much. All he knew was that they needed to get out of there, _now_ —out of the pit, out of the woods, back to the Sanctuary.

Kris dropped Tao on his feet and immediately pushed him back towards the path.

“Run!” He screamed. He glanced around and started pushing everyone within his reach away from that thing in the pit. “Run, go!”

Suho grabbed Kai and Sehun and took off. Kris siezed Tao’s hand and yanked, the two of them raced through the undergrowth. Back on the path the remaining boys were half turned towards the path back down.

“Go!” Kris screamed as they neared. _“Get out of here!”_

They didn’t need to be told twice. Every one of them practically slid back down that mountain; they did not stop, they did not look back. Even so it seemed to take forever to get out of the woods, and Kris started to fear that they would be trapped with that thing. Just when he thought that it was hopeless to keep running, he burst through the trees and into the clearing behind the Sanctuary.

He heard thuds as eleven boys fell to their knees, panting and in some cases sobbing. Kris skidded to a halt and bent over, retching. The back of his throat burned, tears stung his eyes, and he could barely force himself to inhale because his chest hurt so much. He wondered if he was having a panic attack, maybe even a heart attack.

He felt a hand on his back and nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Easy, it’s just me,” Suho panted. Kris looked over at him and tried to say something, anything, but all that came out of his mouth was a weak wheeze.

Suho put his hands on Kris’ shoulders. “Breathe,” he said. “Inhale, count to three and then exhale.”

Kris forced himself to obey; Suho did the exercise with him. After a few minutes his pulse slowed and the ache in his lungs went away. Kris nearly collapsed against Suho’s chest.

“Is everyone here?” Kris asked.

Suho nodded and Kris looked over his shoulder. The other boys were still hunched on the ground. Or, well, eight of them were. Tao and Kai were clinging to each other and trying to stop crying. Kris hauled himself to his feet and made his way over to them. He crouched down in front of them and put one hand on each of their shoulders. Like he had, they flinched away from the initial contact.

“Are you guys okay?” He asked. “Did you get hurt?”

Kai shook his head. Kris looked him in the eye.

“What’s your name?”

Kai jumped. “Kai,” he said.

“And how old are you?”

“Ten.”

“What is your gift?”

“Teleportation.”

Kris repeated these questions to Tao, and he answered them all correctly. Then he made them stand up, and he checked their arms, legs and backs. He didn’t feel and breaks, and they said they felt no pain. Suho went around checking the other boys over. Once they established that everyone was in good physical condition, Kris allowed himself to think about what had just happened.

First, there was an initial flash of fury—directed at himself. Why didn’t he make everyone turn around at the halfway point like usual? Why did he have to fall asleep? Why did the two of them wander off of the path?

Then the fury was directed at Kai and Tao—how could the pair of them have been so stupid as to wander away by themselves? The anger then faded as quickly as it had come when he remembered the blank looks on their faces. Then, bit by bit, he went over what had happened and was left feeling totally confused. Why _had_ he fallen asleep? He’d been tired, yes, but not that tired. And wasn’t it strange that every one of them had been asleep at the same time? Why had it been so damn quiet up there? What had compelled them to go to the top? And what was that _thing_ at the bottom of the pit?

The whole thought process took maybe fifteen seconds, and Kris wasn’t able to dwell on any of it for long because Tao started sobbing in earnest.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered, clinging to Kris’ sleeve. “I-I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry, I don’t know…”

Kris’ initial anger returned and for the first time in his life, he wanted nothing more than to slap Tao across the face. He’d nearly died. He could have died. Kris grabbed Tao’s arms and shook him as hard as he could.

“If you ever scare me like that again!” He yelled, but he didn’t even finish the threat. Instead he pulled Tao against him and hugged him as tightly as he could. “I thought—By the Tree, Tao, I have no idea what I thought,” he cried, his voice thick with tears. From the corner of his eye he could see Suho having a similar conversation with Kai.

“What were you thinking?!” Suho screamed as he clutched Kai tighter.

“I don’t know!” Kai hollered back, his voice slightly muffled by the embrace. “I just remember being really tired, and then the next thing I knew I was falling and that thing was coming towards me…” He choked and started to cry. “I thought I was going to die,” he sobbed. The two of them fell to the ground; Kai’s legs seemed to have given out and Suho couldn’t hold him up.

Kris felt Tao clutch him tighter and looked down into his littlest one's teary eyes. “It was the same for me,” he whispered. “I don’t know how we got there. But I think…” the blood drained from his face. “Kris…was the pit…moving? And talking?”

Kris felt the panic threaten to choke him again. “It was.”

Around them eight boys shivered and clutched at each other. They may not have been near the pit for very long but even they knew that something beyond sinister had been lurking in it.

“I heard it too,” Sehun said in a small voice. They all looked at him.

“Did you hear what it was saying?” Suho asked.

Sehun was shaking; Lu Han wrapped his arm around his shoulders. “You don’t have to say it,” he assured Sehun. “It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it.”

Sehun shook his head and took a deep breath. “It…it sounded like ‘Mama.’”

Kris felt like a bucket of ice had been dropped on him. Tao buried his face in Kris’ shirt.

“Yeah,” Kris managed. “That was it.”

“What…what does it mean?” Xiumin wondered.

Kris looked at the shaking boy in his arms and then around at all of his brothers. It could have been anyone of them dangling over that thing; hell, it could have been all of them.

“It means,” Suho said, echoing Kris’ exact thoughts, “That we are done going into the woods for a long time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original notes:  
> This is where the action culminates. Basically everything that has happened and will happen in this story goes back to this chapter. It's kind of fitting, since this is exactly the middle of the story (I swear I didn't plan it that way) and I've been DYING to post this part from day one.
> 
> And oh boy, it's true.


	5. Wandering

“Someone’s here.”

Kris couldn’t explain how he knew it, but he was positive that their brothers were somewhere in this city.

Tao took off running, yelling at the top of his lungs, “Hey! Where are you? Guys, come on out!”

Sehun grabbed Lu Han and followed suit, Kai and Kris scrambled for the heart (Kris got it) before dashing after them.

“Wait,” Kris called. “We have no idea where we’re going!”

Tao stopped dead in his tracks and Kris felt a little surprised that what he said had worked, but it turned out that Tao wasn’t even paying attention to him. “Listen,” Tao said, turning around in a slow circle. “Can you hear that?”

Kris listened, but all he heard was the wind.

“Yeah,” Kai cried. “I do…” he turned to his left. “It’s coming from over there!”

“What are you even talking about?” Kris asked in exasperation.

Sehun caught up with them, pulling Lu Han along behind him. “I don’t hear anything either,” he panted.

Kai waved his hand distractedly. “It sounds like a…wolf?”

Kris went on instant alert, looking around the empty street. Up ahead was a huge building, which could have hid any number of things behind it. Any kind of wild animal encounter would be the worst thing right now, especially with Lu Han being the way he was. Could they outrun a hungry wolf? Could they fight it off?

“Whatever it is, it’s with them,” Tao said. “The sound is coming from the same direction I’m being pulled to.”

“How far away do you think they are?” Sehun asked, looking around. “I feel like they’re really close.”

Kai suddenly smacked Kris’ arm. “Cover Lu Han’s ears.”

Kris shot him a blank look. “What?”

Kai inhaled deeply. Kris dropped the chest and had barely enough time to clap his hand over Lu Han’s ears before Kai let out a long shriek, which was answered by an eerily familiar scream.

“That’s Yixing!” Tao yelled as a large, white mass of hair came hurtling around the building and ran right at them, howling it’s head off.

They heard a shout in the distance. “Guys, wait—no, Keen, come back!”

Three boys raced out behind the creature.

_Bent over a broken butterfly, determined to help it fly again…_

_Racing out into a lightning storm…_

_Light bouncing off the glass chandeliers, casting rainbows all over the boy in the center of the room…_

“Lay! Chen! Baekhyun!”

“You’re okay, you’re safe!”

“We’ve been so worried!”

Exclamations bounced around and echoed off the walls, the creature continued to howl and yelp and there were arms and hands all over the place—everyone wanted a hug, Tao and Chen were in tears, Lay was not far behind, people kept using each other’s given names by accident…at some point everyone stopped talking and they found themselves in something like a group hug. Kris had one arm wrapped around Lay’s waist and the other holding tight to Lu Han, who wanted nothing more than to touch the fluffy-thing.

“We have so much to tell you!” Baekhyun cried.

“We have a lot to say, too,” Kai said, glancing at Lu Han. “Not all of it is good news, though.”

Chen knelt down and beckoned the fluffy-thing over. “Come here and stop barking.” It obeyed immediately, trotting over to Chen and sitting next to him.

“Maybe we can start this with an explanation as to what that is?” Tao asked.

The other three laughed. “He’s funny looking, isn’t he?” Lay conceded. “It’s a dog, they’re pets. We found him a while ago, but there’s lots of them around. They were left behind in the Migration.”

“Migration?” Kris echoed. “Do you know about it then? What happened to this planet?”

Baekhyun nodded. “But before we talk, maybe you could tell us what’s up with Lu Han.”

Kris felt his stomach drop and he swallowed nervously, thinking about how many times they would have to tell this story before everyone would know what happened. He looked over at Lu Han, who had his eyes fixed on the dog and was immune to everything else around him.

Tao spoke up. “Maybe we should sit down first.”

* * *

Lay, Baekhyun and Chen led them into one of the high-rise buildings, where they had been living in one of the abandoned apartments. It wasn’t small but it wasn’t too big. It was, Kris had realized with a slight pang of resentment, perfect for three people. But he pushed that thought aside very quickly, this was not the time to resent any one. There weren’t enough seats for everyone, so they sat on the floor. Lu Han stood in front of the huge window overlooking the empty city and tapped a melody onto the glass.

Kris wound up doing most of the explaining, starting from Lu Han’s actions on the ship and ending with what they had found out that morning. He wondered if Kai should have been the one to talk, seeing as he was the most knowledgeable on the subject, but his younger brother remained tense and tight-lipped.

Once Kris finished talking there was the initial reaction of panic, then confusion, and finally grim determination from the other three.

“So, we won’t know for a while yet,” Chen concluded.

“Exactly,” Kris said.

“Maybe now you can tell us where you’ve been all these years?” Kai asked, his tone just shy of accusing. Kris resisted the urge to call him out on it and instead decided to ask him later if he could _not_ be this cold every time they met up with one of their friends. 

The three caught on to his tone and looked down in guilt. “We were looking for you, I swear we were,” Lay started. “We only just got to this place a few day ago, we had to rest a bit. We came here from Tianjin.”

“Where?” Tao blurted.

Kris held up his hand. “Start from the beginning, after your pods crashed.”

They took turns explaining, sometimes one would trail off in confusion and someone else would take over—it seemed as if they too had suffered some memory loss, even things as recent as two years ago weren’t so clear.

The three of them had been together in one pod; Chen should have been partnered with Kai, and when he couldn’t find him (he didn’t know Kai had gone with Sehun) he’d panicked, not wanting to be alone, and crammed in with Lay and Baekhyun.

They landed in a forest in a country called the United States of America. It had taken them a week to get out of that forest, another two weeks to find someone, and elderly man, who could understand them and tell them where they were. Apparently the language they spoke on their home planet had been similar to one of the languages spoken on Earth. The man had given them a map, which Lay pulled out of his pocket to point to their landing site. Even on the small map, Kris could tell just how vast the country they had landed on was.

“This planet is huge,” Lay told them. “We had no idea where anyone was or even where to start to look.”

Even eight years ago, the planet had been in a state of distress. They had wandered the country for almost two years, and they had seen signs of collapse—people did what they wanted without fear of consequence, and nobody cared enough to stop them. People openly cursed the government, their gods, turned their backs on each other. They spent a lot of money on ridiculous things, killed their bodies and minds with poisons. The three of them used the rising fear and uncertainty to their advantage—being scared and uncertain themselves, they fit right in with the rest of the population.

“Do you know what was happening?” Sehun asked.

Baekhyun closed his eyes, lost in memories. “The planet was basically dying,” he said. “Have you noticed how dry everything is? How desolate? The people were using things up faster than they could be replaced, the population was too big. There was famine in some places, plague in others, but most of all there was overcrowding and general fear of the end. In some regions they stopped being able to have kids, in others there was civil war. Someone dropped bombs all over, the atmosphere was basically shot; I have no idea how we were still breathing okay. That was another thing, a lot of people walked around in masks because the air was filthy.”

They’d wandered South, pulled by some kind of feeling that if they continued, they’d find something important. After those two years, they came to the border that divided the United States from another country called Mexico. It wasn’t at all like the divide between North and South on their planet; this was a real barrier that nobody could cross unless they had passes and paperwork and all kinds of things. But the three of them had known that something was on the other side of that border.

They waited there for another year, spending their nights in an abandoned, one-room house and their days several hundred feet away from the border. They didn’t know what they were waiting for, but they were afraid that if they didn’t pay attention they’d miss something. Then one day they went to the border and found it deserted.

“What?” Kai exclaimed.

“Everyone was just gone,” Chen told them, sounding like he still couldn’t believe it himself. “The guard posts were empty, there were no cars or dogs…every one we’d seen over the last year had just vanished.”

Previously when they’d attempted to get close to the barrier, they’d be shouted at and shooed away, but now they walked toward it and still nobody stopped them.

“It was the weirdest feeing in the world,” Lay said. “Like even though nobody was stopping us, we shouldn’t have been there.”

They found an entrance gate unlocked and ran through it, and even after they had gotten past it they didn’t stop running. It was like the pull was getting stronger and stronger, and eventually they saw someone in the distance. They were running as well, right at them.

“Who was it?” Kris asked.

Baekhyun grinned. “Suho. He had the other half of the heart with him.”

Kris felt his heart leap to his throat.

“That’s how we knew you were here,” Lay said. “You have the other half—but anyway, the heart was what was pulling us, it lead us to the others.”

“All of them?” Kris gasped.

Chen nodded. “Suho ran out to meet us, the others…” he trailed off.

“Chanyeol, Xiumin and Kyungsoo,” Lay supplied. As he said their names their faces flashed in Kris’ mind. It was so frustrating, knowing he had been missing people, exactly how many, but unable to recall their names or what they even looked like.

Lay went on to explain that the other three had fallen back, but they soon caught up to Suho. The seven of them had a short, happy reunion before realizing they were short five people and one half of the heart, and it was then they began to realize that they had their work cut out for them.

“We knew that you weren’t on that side of the planet,” Baekhyun said. “Don’t ask how we knew; we could just feel it. But for the longest time, there was no way we could get to the other side of the world.”

Together they’d wandered back to the North, then three years ago they got lucky.

“We helped an old woman fight off some thugs,” Baekhyun recalled. “In return, she told us that we could get to Asia if we went to a certain port late at night. The people there would sneak us on to a ship, and it would leave us off in either China or South Korea. Apparently when your planet was on the verge of collapse, you no longer cared who went where and why."

They went where they were supposed to go, only to find out that they had to split up again. Two ships were leaving, one had room for four, another for nine. It was the seven of them and a family of five, and anyone could see that the family would not be split up. They thought of waiting, but the Captains told them (or, this was what they managed to grasp through their broken understanding of the language) that there was no guarantee the ships would be back.

The ships were both supposed to go to Hong Kong—the Captains told them that there was a statue of Bruce Lee in the city; everyone knew where it was, it was the perfect meeting spot. So they decided to meet up there. They split back into their original groups of three and four; Suho took the heart with his group, since he’d had it from the beginning.

“That was the last time we saw them,” Lay said, his voice cracking as he teared up.

“What?!” Sehun and Kris gasped at the same time.

Chen spoke, his voice wavering as he too began to cry. “There was a storm, and our ship went off course. We wound up in Tianjin, it was hundreds of miles away from Hong Kong. We had agreed that if we waited at the statue for two weeks and there was no sign of the other group, we should continue on and try to find the rest of you.”

Kris felt his heart break. It must have been bad enough for Chen, Lay and Baekhyun, what about Suho, Chanyeol, Xiumin and Kyungsoo? Especially Suho, who had been with Chen and Baekhyun since they were toddlers? For all he knew they could have been dead.

“So then what happened?” Kris prodded.

“We kept walking,” Chen continued flatly, like he was forcing all the emotion out of his voice. “We made it half way through North Korea before the migration started.”

Kai leaned forward. “We saw that, or part of it. Really we just saw a bunch of huge space ships. Where did they come from?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “Some planet in Andromeda. No idea what they called themselves, the people here called them Angels. We missed a lot of it, but they landed all over the planet, picked up the population and left.”

“And they missed you lot?” Tao asked.

“They only took the people who gathered in the cities,” Lay responded, "And wanted to go."

“But what about the rest of the population?” Sehun cried. “This planet was home to billions of people! We saw the ships leave, they couldn’t support a population—”

Lay cut him off. “They died, Sehun. A lot of them were dead when we got here. More than 90% of those remaining died over those last seven years. There were only a few million people left, maybe a thousand stayed behind, and that was because they decided to. They were mostly elderly people, a few months after the ships left they were all gone too.”

They all sat in silence for a while.

“So, we’re really the only ones left?” Tao asked in a small voice.

“And we’re not even natives of this place,” Kai said, “So we don’t even count. We shouldn’t be here.”

Lay shrugged. “I’d say we’ve got as much right as anybody.”

Kris shook his head. “I just can’t believe it. They all died so quickly…”

“No,” Baekhyun cut in. “It was a long process. Chanyeol was talking about it. It started years ago.”

“Even so,” Kris said, “The entire planet just emptied out.”

“Not the entire planet,” Sehun reminded them. “We’re still here after all.”

“That’s right,” Tao said, standing up. “We’re still here, and there’s more of us out there. So let’s all get out there and try to find everyone. Good plan?”

They all nodded. It was a good plan.

Of course, nothing ever goes as planned.

By this time the sun had begun to set, and they had realized that a bit of preparation was needed before they went gallivanting off like a bunch of heroes in an epic legend.

First of all, they needed food and water, as well as something to carry it in, they needed good shoes and something warm to wear during the night, and they had to decide if they wanted to walk or find a bigger car.

They’d come to realize that they needed to physically touch the floor if they wanted to feel their way toward their brothers. If they walked, they would be able to sense the missing members of their group, but it would be slow going. If they took a car they’d be going in blind, but they would be able to cover more ground and the car would offer shelter at night and in the rain.

As much as Kris hated the thought of having to guess which way to go, he had to admit the car was the better choice. Who knew how far they would need to go, and what state their brothers would be in when they found them? He knew that cars ran on gasoline, and when the gasoline was gone the car wouldn’t run, but they had seen a lot of cars abandoned in this city, he figured there would be more in other cities and they could take another one if they needed to. They went down to the streets and after a bit of looking around Kris found a large car and figured out how to start it without a key. He had no idea why a book about such things had been in the Sanctuary library, but he was glad he’d read it. 

Even though they had a car, they decided to head out the following morning and have a night together to rest. Despite their worries, they managed to have a pretty fun night. It was just like being back at the Sanctuary, gathering together in one room, talking about their day and just having fun. They started to remember things from their childhood, things they hadn’t in years. They wound up going to sleep obscenely late and thus woke up late.

“Guys, it’s late,” Kris muttered when he finally did wake up and check the position of the sun. The boys passed out around him groaned in response.

Kris hit the person next to him (Sehun) and said again, louder, “It’s late, come on. We need to get moving. Where is Lu Han?” He muttered the last part to himself. Looking around he spotted Lu Han sitting on the floor happily petting the dog.

“Oh yeah,” Kris said. “When did you get the dog?”

Baekhyun waved his hand sleepily. “We found him in Tianjin. Well, Lay found him. He was a baby, and he was all skinny and wet and cold…pathetic really. Started following us around, didn’t have the heart to turn him away. We named him Keen.”

Lu Han looked over. “After the scholar who wrote the first biography of the Guardians, right?” He asked.

Everyone bolted up and gaped at Lu Han, who had gone back to cooing over the dog.

“Uh…yeah,” Lay finally said.

“His memory is coming back,” Kai said disbelievingly. “We were right!”

Chen, Lay and Baekhyun all looked very excited and questioned Kai further, but Kris was focused on Sehun, who was looking a bit lost himself. He reached out to touch Lu Han’s shoulder, but drew his hand back at the last second.

Kris went over to him and laid a hand on his arm.

“Help me carry the bags down to the car?”

Sehun nodded, keeping his eyes on the floor.

The trip down the stairs was so quiet that Kris could hear Sehun’s attempts to keep his breathing under control. Kris held the Tree's heart to his chest, hoping to the Tree for strength. When they got to the car, Kris threw the everything into the back and turned his attention to his youngest brother. He could divide them into groups, friends or brothers, not because he loved any of them more or less, but because some of them he felt like he had to take care of more than others. Sehun was like his baby brother, the one Kris always wanted to coddle and kiss on the cheek even when he got too big. He remembered wrapping Sehun up in his wings and Sehun squealing, 'bird hug.'

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked.

Sehun laughed a bit hysterically. “Honestly, I really just want to cry right now,” he confessed, tears already slipping down his cheeks. He moved to brush them away but Kris stopped him and pulled him into a hug, wings going around Sehun's shoulders.

“So cry,” he said. “When you’re ready we’ll go back inside.”

Sehun rested his forehead against Kris’ shoulder, his whole body shaking. “He hasn’t even looked at me,” he sobbed. “In years, Kris. It’s been _years_. Why doesn’t he remember me?!”

Kris gently patted Sehun’s back. “He will, baby,” he assured him, using the pet name they’d all used when Sehun was a child. “He loves you. You know it as well as I do.”

Sehun heaved for air, and Kris rocked him. He calmed down shortly, though Kris could tell that he was by no means feeling any better.

“We should get a move on,” Sehun insisted, shaking Kris off. “The sooner we find the others, the sooner we’ll know if Lu Han will get better.”

Kris nodded. “Go upstairs and tell everyone to come down,” he said, figuring that Sehun would need the few extra minutes to compose himself. Once he’d left, Kris climbed into the back of the car, picked up the chest containing the Tree’s heart and hugged it to his chest again. He could feel it beating, that along with the heat of the wood made it almost seem like he was back on his home planet, hugging the Tree itself.

“Please, please let Lu Han be okay,” Kris whispered. “If I can only have one thing, please let it be for Lu Han to come back to us.”

He repeated this wish a few times before he put the chest away and climbed into the driver’s seat. The rest of the Guardians came down not long after, and they all crowded in. The car could seat nine people, and even though they were eight people they did have a fairly large dog with them, so there was some initial frustration over who was in who’s space. Eventually Kris casually suggested that somebody ride on the roof or else walk behind them, and everyone shut up after that.

* * *

Weeks went by. They drove for maybe six hours every day, in every direction, trying to feel the tugging presence of the others and the other half of the tree. They only felt the slightest pulls, and they seemed to come from conflicting directions. It made them wonder if perhaps the other four were not in one group. And no matter what, they never seemed to get any closer. The only upside in the weeks was Lu Han’s recovery. By day three of their travels, he could remember all of their names, although he rarely called the right person by the right name. To help him remember more, to help all of them really, they started playing a game where they would all take turns telling stories of things that happened when they were kids. Kris could feel the pain of his isolation in the hospital fading as he remembered the love that he had been surrounded by in his home. He had friends, brothers, a family, he was loved and he had love to give.

The best moment for Kris was something he really shouldn’t even have overheard. It was the tenth day of their travels, and it was a nice night so they had grabbed a bunch of blankets from the back of the car and slept outside. They had a limited number of blankets, and had to double up. Kris woke up after only a few hours of rest, and at first he thought it was because Tao had stolen all of the blanket (as he’d been known to do), but quickly realized something else was amiss. They had a fire but only the coals remained, and the slight orange glow coupled with the moonlight was just enough for Kris to be able to see Sehun across from the fire pit, sitting up with his knees drawn to his chest. Kris listened hard and just managed to make out his uneven breathing. He was crying again.

Kris was about to get up and go over to Sehun when he saw the figure next to Sehun rise up.

“What’s wrong?” Lu Han asked.

Kris gripped the edge of his blanket and held his breath, as he always did whenever Lu Han spoke to Sehun. So far, Lu Han hadn’t seemed to remember that he and Sehun had been in love.

Sehun waved his hand in Lu Han’s direction. “It’s nothing,” he said, and Kris was surprised at how steady his voice was. “Go back to sleep, Luhannie. I promise I’m alright.”

Lu Han sat up and wrapped his arms around Sehun’s shoulders.

“You haven’t changed,” He sighed.

Sehun was quiet for a few seconds. “What makes you say that?” He asked.

Kris heard Lu Han laugh. “You always were a horrible liar.”

Sehun turned around in Lu Han’s arms. “You remember that?” He asked. Kris could almost see the look of wonder on his face.

Lu Han nodded. Sehun turned around all the way; he was practically sitting in Lu Han’s lap. “What was the worst lie I ever told you?” He demanded.

Lu Han reached up and stroked his face. “That you weren’t sure how you felt about me.”

Sehun slumped forward and rested his head on Lu Han’s shoulder. “Yeah, that was it.” He muttered before he started crying again.

Lu Han hugged him tightly. “Why are you crying?”

“Because I love you,” Sehun sobbed.

“I love you too,” Lu Han said.

Kris felt something grab his arm and he nearly screamed, but Tao clapped his hand over his mouth just in time. Apparently he’d woken up as well.

Sehun leaned back and grabbed Lu Han by his shirt. “Do you know what that means, Luhannie? Do you know what you’re saying?”

Lu Han nodded. “I do. I don’t know how to say what it means but…I remember I said it to you a lot. I remember how it made me feel—how it made _you_ feel. I remember that you were the best thing that ever happened to me. And I remember that you cried the first time I said it, because you were scared that we wouldn’t stay together, and I told you that I would never hurt you.” Lu Han gently pulled Sehun’s hands off his shirt and twined their fingers together. “But I think I did hurt you. I’ve been making you cry. I don’t want you to cry anymore, Sehun. I said I remember how you made me feel, and you still make me feel that way. I called it love before, and a lot has changed since then, but…but I think it’s still called love. So yes, I do love you.”

Sehun froze for about five seconds, then he flung himself at Lu Han and tackled him to the ground with the force of his hug.

“You really are back,” Sehun told him through his tears.

Kris looked over at Tao, who also had tears in his eyes. Kris grinned at him and pulled the blanket over their heads.

“Should we…?” Tao asked.

Kris shook his head. “Let them have this moment to themselves.”

* * *

Three weeks into their journey, their twelfth car ran out of gas in the middle of a forest. It had been a crummy car anyway, with only seven seats and broken windows. Lu Han was well enough for them to keep up a good pace while walking, but even they didn’t make much headway. It took them two days to make it out of the forest, and from the edge of the trees they couldn’t see a town. Kris made an executive decision to stop for the night. They made a small fire and ate bags of chips. They were running low on food, Kris hadn’t planned for them to get stuck in the middle of nowhere for this long. He was sitting away from the rest of the group going through their supplies, trying to decide how to ration what they had, when Lu Han came over and grabbed his arm.

“Chen,” he said, pointing into the distance. “What’s that?”

Chen looked up upon hearing his name and sighed when he realized Lu Han wasn’t talking to him.

“I’m _Kris_ ,” Kris reminded Lu Han gently. “And what is what?” He asked, looking out.

Lu Han hauled him to his feet and turned him around. “That,” he said again, pointing out into the distance. Kris squinted and finally saw it—it was getting dark, so it was hard to see the spindly structure against the sky.

“I think it’s a Ferris wheel,” he told Lu Han. “It’s a carnival ride.”

The rest of the group filtered over to join them, intrigued by the conversation.

“What’s a carnival?” Tao asked.

Kris thought back to the books he’d read in the Sanctuary. “It’s like a circus, only without animals…and more rides.”

Kai scoffed. “It sounds nothing like a circus.”

Lu Han grabbed Kris’ arm again. “Can we go there?”

“Where? The carnival?” Sehun asked, bewildered.

Lu Han nodded enthusiastically. “I want to go.”

Kris was puzzled, but nodded. “Sure, we can go.”

Lu Han smiled and, before anyone could stop him, took off running. The dog ran after him, barking his head off.

They stood there for a few seconds, dumbfounded. “Wait!” Kris yelled, finally snapping back to his senses. “I didn’t mean now!”

“Lu Han come back here!” Sehun shrieked, running after him.

Kris scrambled to collect their belongings. He shoved the bags of food at Baekhyun and Tao and grabbed the Tree’s heart. Kai, Lay, and Chen were already chasing after Lu Han.

“Where does he think he’s going?” Tao yelled as they took off.

Kris laughed. “To the carnival, I guess.”

In the distance, Sehun tackled Lu Han to the ground, a cloud of dust rising around them. Everyone quickly caught up after that.

“I thought we were going,” Lu Han said from the ground. His voice was kind of muffled—Sehun had landed on his back and hadn't gotten up yet, as though afraid if he did Lu Han would take off and be lost to them. The pair of them were covered in sand.

Kris knelt beside them and gently nudged Sehun off Lu Han. Sehun looked frazzled, but when he saw that Kris was holding Lu Han's hand, he stood and helped Kris get Lu Han to his feet. “We will,” he assured. “Tomorrow, when it’s light out.”

Lu Han shook his head and twisted his wrist in Kris' hand. “No, we have to go _now_ ,” he insisted, his eyes on the horizon.

“But it’s dark,” Kai reasoned. “And we have no idea where we’re going.”

Lu Han looked back and Kris was taken aback. He had rarely seen Lu Han look so serious before, certainly not in the past weeks.

“Trust me,” Lu Han pleaded. “We need to go there.”

Kris hesitated for half a second. “Well, we ran pretty fast, and we’ve already covered a lot of ground. It hardly makes sense for us to turn back now.”

Lu Han grinned and easily snatched his hand back from Kris. “Then let’s go!” He cried, and with his other hand still grasped with Sehun's, he took off across the sand. The rest of the boys shot Kris confused looks as if they half expected Kris to announce that he was joking.

Baekhyun asked, “You think this is a good idea? Taking his advice?”

Kris shrugged and picked up the chest with the heart. “What have we got to lose?” He started to run. "Come on, let's catch up to them!"

It was dark and for a while they lost sight of the Ferris wheel, but Lu Han insisted he knew where it was. After a few hours, half walking and half running, the sky grew lighter and they could see the wheel and several other structures in the distance.

“How did he know which way to go?” Tao wondered.

The carnival was at the far edge of another city, which meant they could at least find another car at some point. The carnival itself was a dreary looking place, trash floated around in the breeze, the game stands were covered in a layer of grime, stuffed animals which had once been prizes were now homes for mice. Lu Han stood in the middle of it and looked around like it was the greatest place he had ever been.

“Can you make it all work again?” Lu Han asked Kris.

Kris looked around doubtfully. “I don’t know if it would even be worth it to try. These things have probably been out of use for eight years, maybe more.”

Lu Han pouted and looked up at him with big eyes. “Please? Can you try?”

The dog came and stood next to him and looked up with the same eyes. Kris swore Lu Han had trained it to look pitiful.

“Alright,” he sighed. “I’ll give it a try.”

It took Kris all day, but he finally got the carnival up and running and again. It seemed as though it really hadn’t been out of use for too long, maybe it had even been running right up to the end. He turned the major rides on and off one by one, after they had each gone along their tracks a few times, knocking off some of the dust and dirt, they ran pretty smoothly.

“Well,” Kris said to Lu Han, “What now?”

Lu Han grinned at hum. “Turn them on.”

“I did,” Kris reminded him, gesturing to the little train on a lumpy track that he has just turned off, “They work.”

Lu Han shook his head. “Turn them all on at once. Light this place up like a star. Turn up the music and the sound effects.”

Slowly, a picture formed in Kris’ mind and Lu Han saw the light switch on his brain.

“Loud, bright—in this dark and silent world, we’ll be seen and heard for miles,” Lu Han said.

“They’ll have to find us,” Kris gasped. He threw his arms around his brother. “Lu Han, you are a genius!”


	6. The Reckoning

Kris bent over the twentieth book in the pile he collected and pulled his lantern closer, forcing his sore and tired eyes to focus.

“Last one,” he promised himself. “Last one, and then I’ll go to bed.”

He’d been promising that for the last four hours.

It had been six months since the incident in the forest. Kris and Suho had spent hours searching for information on the thing that they had seen, but so far they found nothing. Suho gave up after four months and told Kris to do the same. Kris had refused.

“It’s got to be here,” Kris muttered desperately, flipping through the book. “There must be something!”

“You’ve been saying that for weeks.”

Kris didn’t have the energy to be surprised. “If you aren’t here to help me,” he growled in Suho's direction, “Then go away.”

Suho sighed. “You can finish tomorrow,” he said, “You need to go to sleep. This isn’t healthy, Kris.”

Kris slammed his fist down on the table. The sound echoed around the library. “Yeah, well neither is falling into a pit after being hypnotized by an evil black mist.”

Suho put his hand on Kris’ shoulder. “You’re scaring them. Chanyeol, Sehun, Lu Han, Kai…Tao’s been beside himself—”

Kris knocked Suho’s hand away and stood up so fast his chair tipped over. “Don’t you dare talk to me about Tao,” he snarled.

Suho finally lost his cool. “Well somebody has to!” He yelled, “Since you’re too busy playing detective to even look at him!”

Kris slapped Suho across the face as hard as he could. Suho barely reacted before he shoved Kris into a bookshelf. Kris grabbed Suho’s upper arms and flipped them around.

“Why do you think I’m doing this?” He demanded. “Because I fucking feel like it? It’s because every time I look at Tao all I see is fear! He’s absolutely terrified and it’s all because of that _thing_!”

Suho kicked Kris in the stomach. Kris let go of him and doubled over. Suho knocked him to the floor and sat on his chest. “And working yourself to exhaustion is how you fix that?!”

Kris bucked up but Suho remained unmoved. He stopped struggling and looked Suho right in the eye.

“No,” he said, his voice low and even. “I fix it by learning what it was that did that to him and I destroy it.” Suho laughed in his face and Kris felt his anger intensify. “You think that’s funny?”

“I think it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! What are you going to do, huh? Drop your feathers into it? Get Chanyeol to shoot a fireball at it? Do you think that it will work?!”

Kris finally pushed Suho off and shoved _him_ to the ground. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make it pay for nearly killing Tao and Kai!”

There it was, the words that they had all refused to say.

Kill. Die. Death.

Could have. Nearly did. Almost.

Kris sat back and let Suho get away from him. They both sat on the library floor and let those words sink in.

“He could have died,” Kris choked, tears burning in his eyes. “He could have _died_ , Suho. Tao, he's my best friend and Kai is my little brother. I don’t…I don’t know what I would have done if…”

Suho crawled over and put his arms around Kris’ shoulders. “But he didn’t. Tao and Kai are alive.”

“But they were so close,” Kris sobbed, head in his hands. He felt so helpless and so tired. “We were so close to losing them forever and we’d have nobody to blame but ourselves. Do you know how many times I go back and wonder what would have happened if that root hadn’t been sticking out of the ground? If Sehun hadn’t been able to help me fly them out?”

Kris felt Suho’s own tears drip onto his shoulder. “This isn’t the answer.”

“Maybe not for you,” Kris said, looking up, “But I’m out for blood.”

Suho backed away and shook his head. “No, Kris, none of this is right. The constant research, the wondering, the damn obsessive nature you’ve adopted. I want to kill this thing too, but not like this. Not at the expense of your health and not at the expense of our friendship.”

Kris forced himself to take a deep breath and stop crying. “You’re right,” he admitted. He looked at the mark on Suho’s cheek where he’d hit him. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. All of it. I’m sorry I hit you, and I’m sorry I yelled.”

Suho smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have pushed you. Or said…most of that stuff.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Are we good now?”

Kris grabbed his hand and let Suho pull him to his feet. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re good.”

* * *

Kris didn’t remember his bed being so uncomfortable and cold. He shifted around, trying to find a comfortable spot…where was his quilt anyway?

“Tao,” he mumbled, reaching his arm out to search for the culprit. “Give back the blanket.”

His fingers found rough stone. Had he fallen out of his bed?

Kris opened his eyes and sat bolt upright when he realized he had no idea where he was.

“What the heck?” He muttered. His neck was sore and he was freezing, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he shouldn’t be here. Where ever _here_ was. Well, that was a given, he’d never sleepwalked before and he should absolutely be in his bed, but this felt like one of those places in the Sanctuary that was off limits.

He looked on the floor and saw an open book, which he must have been lying on. That would explain his sore neck. He moved to close it and stopped dead when the word “Mama” jumped out at him from the pages.

An ice cold chill worked down his spine and spread through his body, numbing him to the tips of his fingers. The book looked like a dictionary, and a very old one at that. The ink was faded, but he could still read the definition next to the word.

_Long ago, Mama was a title that referred to the rulers of this world. It literally means ‘Your Highness,’ and can be applied to both men and women._

Kris slammed the book shut, tucked it under his arm and ran out of that room like it was on fire. He ran for about five minutes before he finally forced himself to stop. He leaned against a wall to catch his breath. He held the book in his hands and mulled his newfound knowledge over. Well, he knew what the word meant now, but it didn’t give him what he needed. A ruler? A King or Queen? There were no such things on this world.

He heard a clatter in the hall behind him and jumped so hard that he dropped the book. Over the resonating thud he heard a curse in a voice he recognized.

“Suho?”

“Kris!”

Suho rounded the corner and practically ran into Kris.

“I’m so glad I found you, I’ve been wandering around for forever, I got so lost…I was sleepwalking or something, this place is huge and…what are you doing here anyway?”

Kris picked up the book. “I guess I was sleepwalking too…I woke up in this room and I had this book…take a look at what it was open to!”

Suho scanned the page and his jaw dropped. “You sleepwalked your way to what you were looking for?!”

Kris shook his head. “This isn’t what I wanted though…it’s almost useless. We don’t have Kings and Queens here.”

Suho looked at him seriously. “But why would they have a word for something that we’ve never had?”

Kris thought about that for a few seconds but brushed it off. “It was a swirling cloud of darkness. It’s completely unrelated. Now, can we talk about you? Where have you been?”

Suho looked like he was thinking hard about something. “I woke up in a hidden hallway. It was behind a tapestry…there was a stained glass window with a tree on it…no, _the_ Tree.”

Suho was clearly getting an idea, but Kris wasn’t following. “What are you thinking about?”

Suho started pacing. “Don’t you think it’s odd? We both sleepwalked on the exact same night, even though we’ve never done it before, and we woke up someplace we’ve never been. You found the definition of the word, I found a picture of the Tree…” He stopped and turned to face Kris. “I think we’re getting a message.”

Kris put the pieces together and gasped. “The Tree!”

Suho grinned. “The Tree.”

They banged on all the doors of their fellow Guardians-in-Training and summoned them to Suho and Kyungsoo’s room for an emergency meeting, where they filled them all in on what had happened that morning.

“We’ve decided that we need to go see the Tree,” Kris concluded.

Everyone exchanged shocked looks. “But we aren’t ready yet,” Sehun whispered faintly.

“Yeah…don’t we have to reach Maturity first?” Xiumin added.

It was true, they had been told they needed to reach Maturity—the time when they stopped aging—before they could go see the Tree.

“There are ways around that, though,” Suho said. “We’re allowed to see the Tree before that. We can’t stay for very long, but we can go. It’s in The Book of Cannons.” He glared at the lot of them. “We were all supposed to read it. I thought you read it! You all promised me-”

“Let’s not get into that right now,” Kris interrupted, knowing Suho could go on for hours about this. Suho frowned but backed off and let Kris continue.

“Look, Maturity can take ages, and we won’t all reach it at the same time. We don’t even really know how it’s supposed to work. We could have to wait ten more years before then, and by that time…”

Well, he wasn’t too sure what the consequences would be. But he was sure—they were all sure—that time was of the essence, and they were running out of it.

“Kris and I are going to see the Masters tonight,” Suho told them. “The worst thing they can do is say no. We just…have to pray that they say yes.”

The masters did say yes. They were obviously surprised at the request, but they knew the laws as well as Suho did, and knew that the Guardians in Training had every right to go see the thing they were supposed to guard. But they made one stipulation.

“You have to wait three years.”

Kris and Suho couldn’t keep the shock from their faces. “Why?”

The Head of the Sanctuary looked them over. “Well, to be honest, you’re nowhere close to halfway presentable. You barely know how to control your powers and yourselves. If you want this honor, you’ll need to work for it.”

There was nothing they could do but bow their heads and promise to do so, and inwardly hope that they had three years to wait.

* * *

It was so, so hard to wait that long. There was a constant undercurrent of stress and anxiety in everything that they did. Later Kris would wonder if it motivated them to work even more, because Heaven knew they worked their asses off to be good enough for the previous Guardians and for the Tree itself.

In the end, it was worth it. Three years to the day that Suho and Kris had gone to the Masters to ask to see the Tree, they were on a train to the Tree's Sanctuary.

They brought nothing with them—no clothes, no books, not even a deck of playing cards. Everything would be provided for them, or so they were told. What they were not told was how long their journey would take. A stern looking woman who introduced herself as ‘Mistress’ greeted them on the train. She lined them up, told them they were expected to behave on the train, and that their journey would take approximately eight days.

“Excuse me?!” Kris gasped as Suho cried “Where exactly are we going?”

Mistress frowned at them and rolled her eyes. “Well we’re taking a very roundabout way, you know. We have to make sure we aren’t being followed. Good Heavens, they told me you were an educated bunch.” She gave them all scathing looks, her eyes lingering on Chanyeol. After a long silence she snapped at him, “Stop biting your lips, you fool. Learn to act your age. All of you urchins had better smarten up if you expect anyone to take you seriously.”

Kris barely heard the second part of her sentence. He was looking at the tears in Chanyeol’s eyes and inwardly seething. Kris stepped out of line and looked her right in the eye. He was seventeen and nearly six feet tall, this woman would not be allowed to pick on his kids on his watch.

“You are speaking to the future Guardians of the Tree of Life,” he informed her. “You should learn to act accordingly.” Then he grabbed Chanyeol’s wrist and motioned for everyone to follow him into the next car over.

“You sh-shouldn’t have d-done that,” Chanyeol stammered as soon as they were out of earshot, fighting to keep the tears from spilling over. “You’ll get into so much trouble!” Behind him the others wore expressions of shock.

Kris shrugged. “Not unless she wants me to report her for disrespect. I don’t care who she is, she can’t talk to you like that.”

Chanyeol looked down and tried to hide his tears. “Do I really act like a child?”

Baekhyun stepped up and stood on his toes to give Chanyeol a hug. “You act like yourself,” he said gently, “Which is all you should ever need to be.”

Chanyeol smiled a bit and rubbed at his eyes.

“Kris is right though,” Suho put in. “She can’t get away with that. Maybe we should report her.”

Kris shook his head. “No, because then she’ll have it out for us for the rest of the trip. We need a more subtle way to get her back.”

He glanced at Kai, who had a mischievous little smirk on his face. “I think I can take care of that.”

The rest of their days on the train were devoted to finding spiders and other insects that lurked in the cars under chairs and rugs, and helping them find their way into Mistress’ sleeping car.

* * *

The trip ended at the base of a small mountain, the top of which was obscured by a huge wall. It was a very intimidating site, and the twelve of them hesitated to get off the train.

“Maybe we weren’t ready,” Sehun said quietly. Kris squared his shoulders.

“We need answers,” he said firmly. “Even if we aren’t ready, this is something we need to do. This is our job, this is what we were meant to do—protect the Tree and protect our world.”

It wasn’t the best pep-talk he’d ever given, but it got everyone moving.

In front of the wall, about halfway up the mountain, was a _huge_ castle. It had to be 20 times bigger than the Northern Sanctuary, but then Kris figured it needed to be, since generations of Guardians lived there. They were lead up the mountain and escorted into the castle by masked attendants. They were caught off guard when a young woman met them at the front door. She looked very young, maybe even younger than Kris. She had curly brown hair and a wide, warm smile.

“Welcome, fellow Guardians,” she greeted with a slight bow. They quickly returned the bow, a little deeper since she was their senior.

“It is an honor to meet you,” Suho and Kris said together.

The woman laughed. “Oh, aren’t you all sweet,” she cooed. “And so well behaved! So different from my generation…” She paused with the smile still on her face, her eyes roaming over them.

“Anyway,” she continued after a moment, “My name is Kai, and I’ll be responsible for you while you’re here.”

From the back of the group Kai gasped. “Really?! That’s my name too!”

Kai-the older Kai-grinned and clapped her hands. “Oh, you must be a Teleporter then!”

Their Kai nodded. “How did you know?”

Older Kai laughed. “Oh, all of us have the same name. One of the first Guardians was a Teleporter as well, and he was very renowned for his talents. You’ll be the eighth Teleporter to live here…so don’t be surprised if everyone calls you Eight, like they call me Seven. You can call me Seven, too.”

Kai seemed alarmed by this statement but he quickly hid it. Older Kai led them through the castle to their rooms. They met only the masked attendants along the way.

“Where are the other Guardians?” Baekhyun asked.

Kai waved her hand. “Oh, here and there. We rarely ever see each other, they all have their own things to do.”

Kris and Suho exchanged looks of shock. They had always heard the Guardians were very close to each other.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Kris said tentatively, “We’d like to see the Tree as soon as possible.”

Older Kai paused and nodded slowly. “Yes, of course. Well, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be allowed to go today. After all, you’ll be leaving again the day after tomorrow.”

They all gasped and Older Kai looked at them in surprise. “You didn’t expect to stay for very long, did you?”

“Well…a little longer…” Suho said uncertainly.

She gave them sympathetic looks. “I understand that you are eager for the honor of being Guardians, but the truth is that we’re just not equipped to care for children.”

Well, that certainly stung. Sehun was the youngest and he was thirteen—hardly a child anymore. But they couldn’t very well talk back to their senior Guardian, so they all kept their mouths shut. After a brief stop in their rooms to freshen up, they regrouped in the hallway and Older Kai offered to show them to the Tree.

They were lead to the back of the castle, and from there taken behind a false wall and down a flight of stairs. About half way down, Older Kai opened another false wall, which led to a straight hallway lined with torches. She took a few steps into the hallway and stopped dead, whirling around to face all of them.

“One of the first Guardians is coming,” she mouthed. Immediately they all got down on the floor and bowed as low as they could—this sign of respect was reserved for first Generation guardians only.

They heard the Guardian walk past, though he said nothing to them. Kris couldn’t help but to peek up at the man, and he instantly wished he hadn’t. Kris had only seen a dead person once in his life, but the image had stuck with him, and this man literally looked like a walking dead person. He appeared to have had stopped aging in his twenties, and he had clearly once been very attractive. Now his skin was waxen and almost grey from lack of sun, his eyes were lifeless and everything about him suggested that he was unhealthy. Kris made a note to ask Suho to find a way to kill him if he ever got to be like that.

Once the man had passed Older Kai stood up, brushed off her robes and directed their attention back to the hallway. “It’s not that far now,” she said, mistaking their anxious looks for concern about the trip, when the reality was that Kris wasn’t the only one who’d peeked at the Guardian and not the only one who had been spooked.

The hallway ended in another flight of stairs, except this time they went up. Older Kai led the way, and the stairs ended at a platform and a wooden door decorated with swirling steel designs.

“The Tree is through this door. I’ll stay here and wait for you to come back.”

“You aren’t coming with us?” Xiumin asked anxiously. Kai shook her head.

“This is the part you do on your own.” She grinned at them. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

Kris gulped and looked around. Clearly nobody else was going to take the first step, so he went forward and opened the door.

Briefly, Kris wondered if Older Kai had made a mistake. There was no Tree on the other side of the door, instead there was a huge flower garden. He stepped through the door way and looked around for the Tree. The others filtered in behind him, each one torn between amazement and confusion. Once they were all in the garden, the door swung shut behind them.

“Well, now what?” Kai asked.

Suho shrugged. “I guess we follow the path?”

And indeed, there was a path. Kris almost hadn’t noticed it, he’d been so busy looking up for the Tree. They proceeded cautiously, taking care not to step on any of the flowers or smaller shrubs.

“This place is beautiful,” Chanyeol said as a butterfly fluttered between them. It really was a pretty place, there were exotic flowers and plants, small trees whose brightly colored fruit gave the air a sweet smell. It would have been a nice place to explore if they had time.

The path turned and suddenly became flanked by small trees, the branches of which reached across the path to form a kind of natural tunnel. Now Kris could hear his heart pounding in his ears and he swallowed nervously.

“We’re getting close,” he said, even though he was sure the others felt it too. In fact the closer they got, the louder he could hear his heart pounding. It was almost too loud—almost as if it wasn’t his heart…

Then they rounded the bend and they all gasped. There was no question that the Tree before them was the Tree of Life. It was smaller than Kris had expected—it must have been about fifteen feet tall—but it had a wide trunk and broad branches that seemed to reach back to the beginning of the tree-tunnel. It was simultaneously gnarled and smooth, old and new. The longer Kris stood there the more he felt his fear change to awe, until he thought he might actually cry. This was a magical moment—they were standing in the presence of the thing that had created them, that had given them their gifts. It was a moment none of them would ever forget.

Eventually though, they snapped out of their daze and remembered they had a job to do.

 _"Now_ what?” Kai asked again.

Kris bit his lip and tried to remember what he’d read, but he really couldn’t think of what to do to talk to the Tree.

“Don’t we meditate?” Suho asked.

Kris looked over at him in surprise. “Really? That’s it?”

Suho shrugged. “Pretty sure.”

Well they didn’t have any other ideas, so Kris suggested they all get in a circle around the Tree and give it a shot. They sat evenly spaced, not touching each other and not touching the Tree. Kris shut his eyes and tried to clear his mind. He slipped easily into his Meditation mode, but he didn’t feel any connection to the Tree. It was then he realized that even though his heart rate had calmed down, he could still hear the rumble of a heartbeat. Kris focused in on it and tried to tell where it was coming from when the strangest thing happened. He felt like he was being yanked forward, but at the same time he could feel his body on the ground so he knew he hadn’t actually moved. Then it was like his vision was flooded with light, but his eyes were closed so he couldn’t actually be seeing anything. It was confusing and frightening and yet he knew he had nothing to fear. After a moment the brightness faded to a soft, pinkish light. It was like it had been painted on the inside of his eyelids, or poured into his brain. It was consuming, but comforting at the same time.

‘ _Well, hello young one._ ’

The voice seemed to come from somewhere in front of him. Kris had no idea how it worked but he somehow felt himself being pulled towards it, even though he could still feel his body sitting on the grass around the Tree.

“Hello?” He called, and he could hear his voice and almost feel his mouth move, but at the same time he knew he hadn’t spoken in reality.

“This is weird,” he said, backing away. He felt something reach out to him almost desperately.

‘ _No, wait, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Forgive me, I’m out of practice._ ’

“Who are you?” Kris asked as he continued to shy away.

‘ _I’m the Tree._ ’

Kris froze and felt the thing, or the Tree, begin to creep toward him again.

‘ _It’s been so long since anyone came here…I’m afraid I’ve quite forgotten how fragile my humans can be. And you’re so young! But you’ve grown up so nicely…_ ’

“You’re…the Tree of Life?” Kris asked.

‘ _The one and only._ ’

Well, okay then. “How are you talking to me right now?”

The Tree hesitated. ‘ _Well…I suppose you could call it an out of body experience?’_

“But I can still feel my body,” Kris pointed out.

‘ _Yes, that is true…well I suppose it’s like…your conscious has exited your mind and united with mine.’_

If Kris’ jaw could drop it would have. “But…but…how?”

He could almost feel the Tree smirk. _‘I created this world, I can do anything I want.’_

This was beyond weird. The Tree could talk to him—inside his own head!—and it was clingy and cracked jokes.

“This wasn’t what I had expected,” Kris said.

The Tree seemed sad. _‘Nobody expects it. for some reason they are all afraid of me. The baby was petrified, poor thing.’_

“Baby?” Kris echoed. “You mean Sehun? You’re talking to him too?!”

‘ _I’m speaking with all of you right now. Just as you can focus on more than one thing at a time, so can I._ ’

Kris felt more confused than ever. “This is so bizarre.”

The Tree reached out further—it was almost Kris could feel little physical tendrils of it consciousness, like vines extending towards him.

‘ _It’s been Generations since I’ve met a Guardian who has not reached maturity. Would you mind terribly if I could See your mind?’_

Kris resisted the urge to scuttle away. “Excuse me?”

‘ _I won’t hurt you, I promise. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like…I want to see things from your perspective._ ’

Kris hesitated for a second. “Um…okay, but…don’t get too personal.”

‘ _I’ll try not to_ ,’ the Tree said, and then the tendrils seemed to wrap around him and he started seeing little flashes of his life—learning he was a guardian, the day he left his village, meeting Tao and Lu Han and Lay, the day he got his wings.

‘ _Oh_ ,’ the Tree said, lingering on that memory. It traced his thoughts to that awful night in the Healer’s rooms when his bones were hollowing. ‘ _Flight and Fire are easily among the most painful Gifts to receive, but they are also the most powerful. You are well deserving of this Gift, as you are of your leadership position._ ’

Kris felt so happy and proud at the compliment that he almost missed what the Tree said next.

‘ _I suppose that it’s time to unite everyone now._ ’

“What?” He asked, still on his happy cloud. That changed when his conscious was suddenly flooded with words and thoughts.

“What is going on?”

“Whoa! Where’d the Tree go?”

“Who said that?”

‘ _Calm down_.’

Ah, there was the Tree.

‘ _I have united your consciousness’ together so that we may speak as a group._ ’

“How can this be happening?”

“This is impossible!”

“And a talking Tree is any more likely?”

“I can’t even-”

Kris stumbled through his confusion. Over all the noise, he heard someone crying.

“Everyone SHUT UP!” He yelled. Instantly there was silence but for the crying. In the silence Kris managed to isolate the source as Sehun.

“Baby what’s wrong?!” Kris called, trying to feel his way over. It was the oddest sensation, but he never seemed to get closer.

“I’m-I’m okay,” Sehun gasped. “It’s just…”

‘ _Sehun and Lu Han have both just had a very emotional experience with me_ ,’ The Tree said gently.

“What happened?” Kris recognized that voice as Suho’s.

It was Lu Han who answered. “We told the Tree that we’re in love, and it accepted us.”

Kris’ brain stuttered to a halt. “What? You and Sehun?”

He heard Kai scream in happiness. “I knew it! I totally knew it! This is wonderful this is incredible this is-”

“I did not see that coming,” Kyungsoo admitted.

Baekhyun scoffed. “You wouldn’t have gotten it even if they’d started making out in front of you.”

“Oh god can we not talk about making out I mean Sehun is _thirteen_ for heaven’s sake-” Suho sighed.

“We’re not!” Sehun and Lu Han yelled at the same time. “Not, I mean, I have _boundaries_ ,” Lu Han stuttered.

“Yeah, me too,” Sehun put in.

“Okay,” Kris interrupted. “But why were you crying?”

Sehun seemed to hesitate and the Tree spoke up again. ‘ _Speak, child. They will not judge._ ’

Kris felt everyone go still in anticipation. Finally Sehun spoke.

“We thought that it would be dangerous for us to see each other. Or, I did. I was afraid that we would split up after some time—forever is a long time, you know? And I thought that it would tear us apart. And so I was afraid that the Tree would say we couldn’t fall in love.”

“And we were afraid that you would all agree,” Lu Han put in sheepishly.

“No!” Chanyeol said immediately. “We would never go against you like that. If you love each other then you love each other, and we still love you too!”

‘ _That is what I said_ ,’ The Tree told them. ‘ _Love knows no bounds, that goes for Guardians too. Sehun and Lu Han are perfectly matched, their love will last forever.’_

It was a beautiful speech, and everyone agreed that the Tree was right.

‘ _Now_ ,’ the Tree went on, ‘ _Perhaps you can tell me why you came to see me? I can think of no reason that you’d be here before your Maturity other than that something is wrong_.’

The happy mood vanished.

“Well,” Suho began. “We saw something in the woods.”

“It tried to kill me and Kai,” Tao said. Kris felt the Tree focus its full attention on the pair of them.

‘ _What was it? Can you show me?’_

They both muttered affirmatively. Kris didn’t see what the two of them showed the Tree, but after a few seconds he felt the Tree’s horror and…was that resignation?

‘ _I had hoped this would never happen…but I knew the day would come_.’

“You know what it is then?” Kris asked.

‘ _Yes,_ ’ the Tree said heavily. ‘ _And your visions of revenge will do you no good. That thing has no ability to feel anything._ ’

“But what is it?” Suho asked.

The Tree sighed. ‘ _It is an ancient force of darkness, created along with this world. You must understand,’_ the Tree said, it’s tone taking on the authority of a teacher, _‘There can be no pure good or pure evil, because then there would be no balance. When I created this world, I needed to create good and bad, and hope that I could teach my children the difference and to be as good as possible. Unfortunately, that was not always the case. When the human race was still in its infancy, some people thought that the Guardians were not enough to control the population. This group wanted what they called ‘real leaders,’ and so they elected a man and a woman to govern them. These people took on the title_ _“Mama”_. _’_

There was a collective shudder as everyone recalled what the black mist had whispered.

‘ _For a while, I insisted the Guardians do nothing about these people, for it was only a small group that really listened to them. I thought they would die out, but the Rulers wanted power and control, and they were willing to do anything to get it. Did you all know,’_ the Tree asked suddenly, _‘That the same power which gives all of you your gifts was once a physical consciousness itself? It was like an extension of myself, and I let it roam free to choose for itself who would receive these gifts. That was a mistake on my part. The Rulers used sacrifice and dark magic to harness this power and keep it to themselves, and it became corrupted by the darkness inside them. Eventually, the power consumed them—literally_.’

Kris felt everything in him go numb. “You mean…that thing was a person? Or- was two people? It was a real, living human being?”

‘ _Indeed. The first Generation of Guardians managed to seal the thing underground, but I knew it had not been destroyed, for part of it broke off and sealed itself away inside the Guardians_.’

Chanyeol and Lay swore, Tao and Sehun seemed close fainting and everyone else was in such a state of shock they couldn’t speak. Or, almost everyone.

“How can you tell?” Kai demanded. “If you know, why can’t you get rid of it?”

‘ _I would have tried if I could_ ,’ The Tree insisted. ‘ _But very soon after that, my Guardians stopped coming to me. They had found out about the second Generation of Guardians by that point, and they thought I was betraying them._ ’

“What? Why?” Chen asked.

‘ _They thought I was throwing them aside. But I knew this was not a job they could have for eternity, I never wanted to replace them._ ’ Now the Tree seemed to be pleading. ‘ _I wish I had explained it to them properly. I took so many things for granted, made so many mistakes. Now the only times I see the first Generation is in the thoughts of the other Guardians. You saw one today, did you not? Didn’t you notice how decrepit he is? That’s what this darkness has done to him. To all of them. And I fear it has infected most of the others as well, for they too have stopped coming to see me._ ’

There was a moment of silence in which everyone’s fear was the only thing that Kris could feel.

“Does that mean that there is no one we can trust?” Kris asked.

‘ _Yes,_ ’ the Tree said resolutely. ‘ _Or next to no one. Seven—Kai—she is the only one. She was only fifteen when she reached Maturity, and she has a purer heart than those around her. She still comes, but I fear even she cannot be trusted for much longer. I am afraid we’re running out of time._ ’

“What do we do?” Suho asked, on the verge of panic.

‘ _You will do nothing yet_ ,’ The Tree told them. ‘ _You are too young and your powers are not developed. You will go back to your Sanctuary and finish your training. You will tell no one there of this conversation. The only one you will speak to is Seven. Now, listen carefully. One of the fifth Generation of Guardians was gifted with technology. He built a ship that will be able to leave this planet and travel through space. It is old but it still works. I will instruct Kai that when you come back after reaching Maturity, you will cut the wood of this Tree open and take out my heart. You will split in half—once my heart is exposed it will be vulnerable to the darkness. Splitting it will make it harder for me to be attacked and consumed by the power as well. After that, you will get on board that ship and leave this planet._ ’

There was another moment of silence before Xiumin timidly asked, “We’re abandoning the people of this world to that thing?”

The Tree sighed again. ‘ _I know it sounds awful, but you must understand, that thing has no desire to physically harm this world—it just wants power. It is wicked and dark, but it will not kill unless it feels threatened. We are not running. I will never abandon my people. We are retreating, we will find a safe haven and I will build you an army that will be able to destroy that thing once and for all. I cannot do it here, but it can be done._ ’

“Do you promise?” Kai asked.

‘ _I swear on my very existence,_ ’ the Tree vowed.

Kris felt around the circle of consciousness, searching for dissident or reluctance. He found only grim determination.

He spoke for all of them when he said with steely confidence, “We trust you, and we’ll do exactly what you have said.”


	7. Home

It took less than three hours for the other four to find them. They came running through the dark, screaming their heads off. Kris heard them before he saw them. He lead his small group out of the carnival, they waited on the edge of the light and the shadow. They saw Chanyeol first—with his long legs it figured that he would be the fastest. He launched himself at the first person he saw, who happened to be Kris, and they went careening to the floor. Next came Xiumin and Kyungsoo, who found Kai and Sehun. Suho brought up the rear, the chest with the heart in his arms, and actually collapsed in Chen’s arms. There was utter confusion as everyone tried to hug each other without letting go of the last person they grabbed, all of them crying.

Then for a split second Kris couldn’t find Lu Han and he had a brief panic attack. He found him almost immediately after but that didn’t stop him from yelling that they needed to find some kind of order. It took another moment but they arranged themselves in a circle, each one holding hands with the person next to them, they all looked around and just took in everyone’s face. It was quiet and perfect, Kris felt like he had never been happier in his entire life than he was in this moment.

“Well,” Kai said after a long time. “Now that we found each other, what comes next?”

Maybe it was because they were so happy, maybe they were really tired, maybe it was just that funny—but the twelve of them collapsed on the ground, they laughed so hard.

Suho regained his breath first. “I guess we should put the Tree back together again.”

“That’s actually a really good idea,” Xiumin said, nodding.

They all got to their feet and went into the Carnival. Kris had put his half of the Tree’s heart with all their things next to the Ferris wheel. He was about to open the box when Chanyeol suggested that this might not be the best place to start experimenting with the heart—who knew what could happen and did they really want it happening next to a giant metal contraption like that?

By this time the sun was rising and they decided to take a walk into the dessert, hopefully it would be far enough away from the city to avoid damage. When they’d cut the Tree open to retrieve the heart, a blast of light had shot out of the gaping wound and destroyed everything in the garden, and Kris had a feeling that had there not been a magically fortified wall surrounding the Tree, more damage would have been inflicted.

Once they had reached a safe distance, Kris and Suho knelt down and set the chests containing the heart on the ground; the remaining ten Guardians formed a circle around them. Kris hadn’t opened the chest since the halves of the heart had been placed inside and didn’t remember what it looked like, nor did he know what to expect when he opened it. Suho looked over at him and they opened the chests at the same time. The heart was like a gem—a hard, faceted surface, deep red in color. It was beating slowly, and now that the chest was open Kris could feel heat radiating from it.

Kris looked over to Suho to ask what he thought they should do, but before he could speak the chests began to rattle. The two of them sprang back as the pieces flew up and united in midair. There was a blinding flash of light, and for a split second Kris couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed, he couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t feel anything. Then just as quickly the light faded to a soft glow, he still couldn’t see but he could feel his feet on the ground and he could hear a gentle voice speaking to him.

‘ _Bravo, my children. Bravo, bravo._ ’

“It worked!” Suho exclaimed somewhere to his right. There were similar exclamations all around, Chanyeol called out that it was good to speak to the Tree again.

‘ _It is good to speak to you too,_ ’ The Tree said warmly. ‘ _It has been far too long. I am very sorry that things did not go as planned, I didn’t foresee this. But the past is behind us and it is time to look forward to our future on this world._ ’

“You think we can have a future here?” Kai asked, and for the first time in weeks he actually sounded hopeful.

‘ _I do believe it. This world can be rebuilt, it will take time, but have created a world before from scratch, I believe I can rebuild this world and make it great once more, and create a new race of people to live here._ ’

Kris felt a jolt of pure shock. “What? You make it sound like you want to stay here permanently! I thought this was a temporary thing, I thought we would go home. Not right away but someday!”

Suho muttered in agreement but everyone else remained silent.

“Kris, we can’t go home.” It was Tao who spoke.

“What are you talking about?” Kris demanded.

The Tree spoke up again. ‘ _He’s right, I’m afraid. By now the Darkness has completely taken over. If you ever went back, it would be in thousands of years, and you would need an entire army of Guardians to help you defeat the Darkness._ ’

Kris was speechless.

“But I thought the Darkness wasn’t that bad when we left!” Suho protested. “It can’t have taken over so quickly, can it?”

‘ _I’m afraid so,_ ’ the Tree said sadly. ‘ _Because it was already far more advanced than I had originally suspected. Tao, it’s time for you to tell your story._ ’

Kris was knocked out of his state of speechlessness. “What?”

Tao was hesitant and spoke quietly. “Kris…do you remember the ceremony that made you leader of the Southern Guardians?”

Of course he remembered that day and the week of worthless preparation.

“Well, I was kind of suspicious when you told us that they were going to skip out on a lot of the traditional stuff. I knew what a big deal it was supposed to be, so during the ceremony I kept an eye on the Masters. When they were mixing the potion for you to drink, I saw one of them slip some kind of powder into it. I knew it wasn’t supposed to have been done, because he made sure to do it at an angle where you couldn’t see. I got really nervous, and I just knew something awful would happen if you drank it. So I froze time and switched the cup they gave you with one from the side table-the goblets that were full of water. Later I went back and got the cup and I dumped the potion into a plant and…”

‘ _Go on_ ,’ the Tree urged when Tao paused for a long time.

“The plant died almost right away. The potion had been poisoned.”

There was a collective gasp from around the group and then everyone started talking at once.

“But why would they want me dead?” Kris muttered, unable to even think clearly. He’d almost been murdered!

‘ _I’m afraid that’s because the Darkness had a hold on many of the Masters at the Sanctuaries,_ ’ the Tree said. ‘ _You see, back when the Darkness was contained, I told the first Generation that it could be vanquished when two Guardians with the marks of the Dragon and the Phoenix were born. These two would have powers of flight and fire, and their Generation would be the strongest of them all. So strong that it would take years for the world to generate enough magic to sustain them. When the Darkness took hold of the first Guardians it learned this, and it learned to look out for those children._ ’

“We’re that Generation, then?” Sehun asked. “But we don’t have anyone with those marks.”

“Actually, we do,” Chanyeol mumbled.

Kris thought about the mark that stretched across his back. He thought about his affinity test, where he’d been so close to picking the fire crystal.

“I’m the Dragon,” he gasped at the same time Chanyeol stated that he was the Phoenix.

There was a long silence. “Well. That would explain the new mark,” Suho said to Chanyeol. We’ve wondered about that for a while now.”

“The Masters did say they’ve never seen anyone as powerful as our group,” Lay reminded them.

“And Chanyeol and I have always been fascinated by each other’s abilities,” Kris admitted.

“I guess it explains why our ship was sabotaged too,” Lu Han said.

Kai gasped. “Do you think Seven did that?”

‘ _I don’t know who did it,_ ’ The Tree said, ‘ _But I doubt very much that Seven was responsible. The Darkness can’t make someone do something they have no idea how to do, and Seven barely knew how to start that ship let alone disable it._ ’

Everyone felt a little better after hearing that. They’d grown very attached to Seven, they would have hated to think she could have betrayed them like that.

“Well I guess that’s that then. We’ve been betrayed, there’s no going back,” Kris whispered.

The Tree reached out to him, sensing his distress. ‘ _Maybe one day. Maybe I can build a race of Guardians who will be strong enough to help you fight the Darkness. Maybe we can go back and reclaim our home. But for now, you are right_.’

It was a tough thing to hear even if they all knew it to be true, and there was along moment of silence while everyone mourned for their home.

‘ _Don’t be too sad,_ ’ The Tree pleaded. ‘ _I have been here for as long as you have, and while I don’t know everything about this world I know enough that you will all be happy here. This world has a lot to offer. It’s a bit beat up and rough around the edges, but give me a few hundred years to smooth it out and I’ll be able to create a place that is fit to raise a new population._ ’

“Will you tear everything down and start over?” Lu Han wondered.

‘ _I don’t think so,_ ’ The Tree said. ‘ _There are a few things I could do without—but many of the plants and animals are similar to those on our home, and many more are harmless and good, so I’ll leave them alone. There are a lot of historical monuments around the world which I will reclaim from the overgrowth and leave standing for my future children to enjoy._ ’

“What should we do for you while you’re doing all of this?” Suho asked.

‘ _Absolutely nothing_ ,’ The Tree told them. ‘ _I did this on my own before and I will do it again now. I will stay right here and regrow my outer covering, then I’ll dig my roots into the ground and stretch them out to cover the planet. I’ll pull the land masses into one, I’ll tear down and destroy the things which should be destroyed, and I’ll rebuild what needs to be rebuilt._ ’

“But that will take hundreds of years!” Chen gasped. “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?”

‘ _Well I’m sure I don’t know,_ ’ The Tree said in a teasing tone. ‘ _I suppose you could go wander this world like swash-buckling heroes, exploring the territory and evading dangers—_ ’

“Now you’re just being silly,” Xiumin said flatly.

‘ _I suppose I am_ ,’ The Tree agreed. ‘ _But really, do whatever you want. This world is yours now. And if you want to come visit me every century or so, I suppose that would be nice. Just don’t go bugging me too often._ ’

“So that’s _it_ then?” Baekhyun said disbelievingly. “Really?”

‘ _Really, really_.’

“Well then,” Kris said after a stunned pause. “Um, okay.”

They could sense the Tree withdrawing slowly. ‘ _Farewell, my children. I will miss you dearly, but you have each other and I know you will be taken care of. When you next see me this world will already be changing. Don’t be afraid, though. I trust each one of you, and I know you’ll be alright._ ’

“We’ll miss you too,” Tao said tearfully.

“Good luck!” Chanyeol called.

‘ _Good luck to you too, my loves,_ ’ The Tree said as it released them from its hold.

Kris opened his eyes slowly, taking time to commit those moments to his memory. The Tree could be childish and annoying sometimes, but he knew he would miss it. When he finally opened his eyes he saw mixed emotions from his brothers. Some were misty eyed and wary, some were excited.

“Well, what now?” Kris asked with a small grin. “The world is ours. We can do anything we want, go anywhere we want, and we have a few hundred years to do it in.”

There was something wonderful about that, and they all saw it in that moment. An unexplored world lay before them, literally calling out to them.

“First, I want somebody to explain to me what that thing is,” Kyungsoo said, pointing at the dog which was still sitting at Lu Han’s feet.

“I’d really like to drag Sehun off somewhere and talk to him,” Lu Han admitted, side-eyeing his boyfriend.

“I want to go on the Ferris wheel!” Kai shouted, making everyone laugh.

“Okay,” Kris said. “Let’s start there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On AFF, I expanded the universe and just kept adding chapters to these original seven. With the way AFF was set up at the time, it was the easiest way to keep everything connected as a series. If I were posting the story there for the first time now I would have made the expansion its own separate thing, though still kept all...74 chapters together in one work. Good lord there's 74 chapters to go through. Well now this is a series so those 74 chapters are going to be their own thing.


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